The Flight of a Xel'naga Shapeshifter
by Troll-Theorist
Summary: The ancient xel'naga creatures have set in motion the Infinite Cycle, through which their species can renew itself. Witnessing that the process of creating new xel'naga is often brutal, some of them become determined to put an end to it once and for all. Two shepherds of the Infinite Cycle secretly plan to save it. *StarCraft belongs to Blizzard Entertainment.*
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Xel'naga**

The green campfire burned wildly, providing light in the night as the deep voice of the storyteller began to narrate.

"Let me tell you the wacky, hard to believe tales of a being that is more ancient than any species you can find in this universe. It came from another world, a place which looked much like the one we live in right now, with planets – some full of lush vegetation like you see here, some with environments too hot or too cold to sustain life, and some with a mix of those – in galaxies filled with stars, moons, black holes, and the like.

The being's oldest known ancestors started out as small, black, slimy, limbless creatures with four eyestalks on their heads. The species' mouth full of a hundred sharp teeth allowed it to eat plants very fast. It originated on a planet of which its people couldn't even remember the name. The members of that species, which its descendants called oai, 'old us', were hermaphrodites and had the habit of trying to mate with everything they could find. Eventually, they mated with creatures of a compatible species that led to the laying of hundreds of eggs which hatched into offspring that possessed tentacles. This greatly enhanced that new generation's ability to grasp and use tools. It also led to even greater reproductive compatibility with other species on that planet, which resulted in the oai assimilating them all, becoming the only species there.

At some point in time, the oai, who ended up ten times larger on average than their first known ancestors, started to call their species riai, which meant 'now us'. The riai were peaceful and studious ... except at night, when they were too busy breeding. In time, they built spaceships, leaving their planet of origin to colonize others, spreading over hundreds of star systems within the span of five hundred years.

After contacting the first sapient alien species on a cold planet, the riai invited them to merge with their species so they could both benefit from their strengths. After the merging, the riai physical features still remained dominant in the resulting offspring. In time, the riai became able to convince almost any alien species to join them in their quest to unify the galaxy under a single, strong species. The aliens refusing their offer did not start any wars with the riai, because they did not have the outstanding population numbers that the riai had.

The last iteration of the riai did not change much in terms of shape, but it gained the ability to change its skin texture and color according to the environment. At that point there were no more species to assimilate from the neighboring star systems, so the riai set out on a journey to find more aliens.

Their journey led them to a planet where they found artifacts more ancient than the riai. These structures seemed to call to them, telling them of a prophecy concerning the riai and another species called neant. It said that the riai gained purity of essence and were eligible to merge with the neant, who possessed the purity of form. The result would lead to the creation of the strongest beings in that universe, and one of theirs would be chosen to ascend among the universe's creators and become a xel'naga like them. All they had to do was seek out the pieces of an artifact called the Keystone.

The riai were very eager to meet the neant, so they sought the pieces, which gave them clues that led them to a planet where no life had developed. There they found the last piece of the puzzle at a temple and assembled the Keystone.

The prophecy engraved on the temple said that the other race would be there shortly after the arrival of the riai, and the riai even prepared to throw a party for them. Unfortunately, the neant failed to show up for three weeks. The riai decided to go look for them, but found out that the neant went extinct due to their low reproduction rate. Disappointed, the riai gave up on the party and returned to their planets.

A year later, the riai's scientists discovered another alien species – the larphin – which showed promise. Each of the aliens had a pair of large wings and was bipedal, covered in feathers, with scaly, featherless hands and feet with talons. The larphin also had large jaws with hundreds of tiny teeth, and had great eyesight due to their large eyes. But the most important thing that attracted the riai to the larphin was the race's great psionic potential. They truly fit the description of the purity of form.

The riai rejoiced as they had a new species to assimilate and a chance at fulfilling the prophecy of the xel'naga at the same time, but they had to act fast: the larphin were also threatened by extinction, having only a hundred members left. It didn't help that the larphin required males and females to reproduce, and they only had eight females that could each lay an egg or two every five years.

The larphin had lost all hope when the riai arrived. They did not even attempt to defend themselves, as they were outnumbered. However, they were surprised to find out that they were not under attack. The riai were happy to make first contact, and even gave the larphin the offer to merge species to save the larphin culture from being forgotten. The larphin took the offer, and the two races partied and mated with each other, resulting in the the viriai species, the 'prime now us', which only inherited the feathery wings from the larphin physically, but the species' psionic powers became the greatest in that universe.

Sixteen years had passed since that event, and the viriai had no idea who to send to the place of the Keystone. Most of their members had lost almost all interest in science, preferring to party and continue to reproduce, colonizing more planets of their galaxy and enjoying the various drinks and food made from exotic flora and fauna. At some point, they had completely forgotten about the xel'naga's prophecy.

One day, one of the few viriai who still valued studying over debauchery decided to go visit the Keystone. It wanted to see if what their species became truly matched the requirements of the prophecy as per the riai scientists' hypothesis.

Upon arriving on the barren planet, which was named Moeba, the young viriai went up to the Keystone and touched it with one of its six tentacles. The Keystone began to glow in a bright green light, announcing that the xel'naga had awakened and were on their way there.

The viriai was happy that it would meet the xel'naga, but was also anxious because … it had a problem with excessive slime secretion. What would the xel'naga think if the one representing the viriai as a race was this imperfect creature who could not even fully control its bodily functions?

It was too late to leave, for the xel'naga revealed themselves to it. They were humongous! Their bodies had more tentacles than the viriai could ever dream of having – even their snouts were adorned with tentacles! Their eight eyes were small compared to the rest of their bodies, but not only could they see at peak efficiency, they could peer into time itself!

'We are the xel'naga,' one of the great beings said. 'I am Ouros, one of the two who have seeded your universe with life. This is Kufu, the other xel'naga who is responsible for your creation.'

Shaking while using a tentacle to wipe off a stream of mucus that dripped from under its neck, the viriai said, 'It is nice to meet you people, but I think I should go bring you one of the better members of my species.'

Kufu held out a tentacle and told the viriai, 'That will not be necessary. You are all we need to fulfill our end of the prophecy.'

And so, the only viriai to show up was chosen to be taken to an immense, octahedral stone temple called Ulnar, illuminated by blue crystals and located in the Alterian Rift outside of the universe. There, the viriai would ascend as a xel'naga and live among the gods. Kufu had to give up his life in order to pass his essence of eternity to the viriai through his many eyes, but he was pleased with his choice before he faded out of existence.

As xel'naga, our protagonist changed shape and grew ten times in size. Its body became green and entirely made of fire, with all four eyes now glowing bright white and no longer being on stalks, but instead being housed inside eye sockets just above a snout that looked similar to that of the xel'naga and sprouted five short tentacles at its end. A pair of horns decorated the former viriai's head – they were remains of two former eyestalks. The rest of the new xel'naga's body acquired many tentacles as well, down to the tail, and lost the ability to produce slime. It had retained its wings, whose span increased greatly.

Ouros told the new xel'naga, 'At the moment, you are still young. Your body will, in time, become like ours, able to live efficiently in the Void, which will now be your home. Here, at Ulnar, you will learn about your powers as well as your responsibilities as a xel'naga.'

The young xel'naga became Ouros' favorite pupil, following him around in Ulnar and the Void. Time seemed to flow faster to the new xel'naga. A million years became nothing more than a month for it, so learning very advanced psionic skills that primitive beings could not live long enough to fully grasp was no problem.

One day, the time came for our protagonist to witness the greatest power of the xel'naga: the creation of life. Ouros and another one of his pupils, Amon, who looked similar to him, only with black skin and red eyes, found an empty universe pocket that formed at the edge of the Alterian Rift. They prepared to seed its barren planets with life.

Ouros brought our protagonist and another young xel'naga named Duran closer to the pocket, then told them, 'Watch, young ones, as Amon and I shall start another cycle that will create more xel'naga! One day, you too will take part in this ritual.'

Amon wasn't happy about what he was supposed to do. He had a very grumpy stare, and within him wrath started to grow. Yet Ouros did not mind his eldest pupil's attitude toward the lesson. He grabbed Amon by the tentacle and led him inside the universe, saying, 'We shall plant the seeds of life on a few planets near the core of each galaxy closest to the Alterian Rift's portal. After that, we shall sprinkle little artifacts across several planets, which will lead the races holding purity of form and purity of essence to their unification. Once a worthy individual shows up from the resulting race and reaches the Keystone, we will go greet them, and I will bestow my essence to the chosen one.'

Amon said, 'This is madness, teacher! Have you not seen the wars that my race had been through? Have you not seen that even my ascension could not save them from their doom?'

Ouros did not seem sad about that fact, as he told Amon, 'Your race had brought that upon itself. It is just a consequence of free will. We do not interfere with any lesser being's choices while they are evolving. We bestow the gift of life, but what the resulting beings do with it is all on them.'

'What about your prophecies?' Amon asked, squinting. 'Many races killed each other over who was the rightful one holding purity of form and the one holding purity of essence. Even when my ancestors' races merged into one, the resulting race could not agree who to send as the chosen one. Wars broke out, and everything was taken from me: my parents, my mate, my offspring … It was all in the name of who was worthy to ascend among you, to take on your legacy. I thought that I could save them if I just surrendered to the fate you have placed upon me, but I saw my people slaughter each other into extinction over your choice!'

To that Ouros said, 'Their role in the Cycle has come to an end. New life has been and will be born now that you are here among us. You will have so many offspring that they will more than make up for your losses, even for the ones from the previous cycle we've started.'

'You don't understand,' Amon said. 'I wanted the offspring that were the result of the love between my mate and I! I wanted the family I had established with _her_! A family for which I had striven to provide a safe future! They are all _gone_! Now you keep making me create offspring by myself, and throw them into an arena where many of them will suffer and then die! Look how Duran turned out after we seeded his universe! And your elder, Kalama, had to give up her life to save him by giving him her xel'naga essence! The Cycle is a cruel ritual!'

'It is up to the lesser lifeforms whether they go the war path or the peace path,' Ouros said. 'The people I've ascended from managed to unify all races in their galaxy without a single killing. Then we have our newest member here, whose people also proceeded to peacefully assimilate other races into theirs, and they have succeeded the completion of a cycle. Let us seed this universe and see if it will be as lucky.'

And so, Amon and Ouros performed the ritual together for the second time, creating life and starting a new cycle which would take many, many eons to complete. Much to Amon's disappointment, most of the creatures in this universe turned out to be violent too. He hated the suffering that resulted from the Infinite Cycle. He and Duran complained many times to the elders of the xel'naga to put the young creatures out of their misery, but the elders refused to interfere.

The former viriai tried to get to know Duran. Duran was the second youngest xel'naga there, and had managed to take a void form which looked almost similar to that of the elders, including short tentacles on his snout. But he still had four arms left over from his initial form, and his fourteen limb tentacles were very thick, not yet ideal for moving within the Void. He had only four fully formed eyes, with two more still developing, so his ability to peer into time had not yet reached its peak. His psionic energy manifested in his body as a red glow that could be seen in his eyes, on his chest, on his snout, on his head's temples, and on the tips of all but a pair of his large tentacles.

Our protagonist decided to apply some of its species' charm on Duran by saying, 'You are starting to shape up nicely.'

Duran seemed insulted by that remark, because he gave the young xel'naga a nasty look and said, 'This isn't who I should be! This form is _ugly_! My beautiful arms are being reduced to stubs! Look at them!' He showed the new xel'naga his vestigial arms' two-fingered hands.

The young xel'naga said, 'I am sorry. I thought the xel'naga form is an improvement. I mean … look at all these tentacles I have been blessed with!'

That was when Duran snapped. He pointed one of the stubby fingers of his top-right hand at our protagonist and told it, 'Of course your people appreciate getting appendages! You are descended from limbless, slithering, snot-filled creatures that had no dignity to pass along! That is why even the last iteration of your race regarded themselves as not even worth using pronouns other than what they used for objects and lesser creatures. Your individuals didn't even have _names_!'

'We did not need names,' said the young xel'naga. 'We knew whom anyone was referring to when they talked about one of ours.'

Duran ran out of arguments, so he left our protagonist with a few choice parting words: 'You are the most pathetic xel'naga in existence!'

While the former viriai was sad about its failure to make a new friend, it was still glad to have Ouros as mentor. Ouros could always see the best in any creature, no matter its stage in the grand scheme of things. He was also very forgiving of the insults Duran and Amon threw at him and the other elders, and he hoped that one day those two would come to accept that overall the Cycle wasn't as bad as it seemed to them.

Many eons had passed, and Ouros had taught our protagonist – who ended up owning nine snout tentacles – the art of shapeshifting, among other skills. It took the new xel'naga a lot of discipline to take the shape of lesser beings, although it could not turn into other xel'naga. Each transformation cost energy, and Ouros taught it that energy management was very important to a xel'naga. Each psionic power had a well-known cost, and was useful for specific situations. Wars among the xel'naga had never happened up to that point, but Ouros thought that it would be wise to train all of the xel'naga to fight and defend themselves just in case the situation might change. With Amon and Duran's ever growing hatred for the xel'naga who supported the Infinite Cycle, those lessons seemed to be almost a requirement.

In time, Amon and Duran managed to gather the sympathy of seven hundred other young xel'naga who could relate to their suffering. Amon tried to make our protagonist side with his cause, and he almost succeeded, but our protagonist decided to stay neutral once it learned that Amon's plan was to destroy all life in the new universe and put an end to the Cycle by creating beings that had no free will. That just didn't sound like fun.

Ouros knew of the scheme, but did not take any action, for he considered that even xel'naga had the freedom of choice. Should they choose to end lives and follow through with that choice, barely then their brethren would take action against them. Hoping that nothing bad would happen, he and the rest of the xel'naga loyal to the Infinite Cycle went into slumber along with our protagonist.

The shepherds of the Infinite Cycle were in for a rude awakening once they sensed an absence within the Void. They found out that Amon, Duran, and the seven hundred other rebelling xel'naga went into the newest universe and interfered significantly with the development of lifeforms on two planets: Aiur and Zerus. On Aiur, clues showed that its locals, the protoss, had been uplifted into a race that was supposed to have purity of form. Yet they were very, very flawed due to their forced evolution. Upon further investigation, Ouros noticed the remains of hundreds of his former xel'naga brethren who had rebelled against the Infinite Cycle. It was then that he realized he had to stop Amon before he'd cause more creatures to turn against the xel'naga's entire race. He gathered the eldest of the xel'naga and they took their worldships to search for Amon and his followers.

On Zerus, which back then was mostly an ash wasteland, Ouros found Amon and the rebels, along with modified zerg, whose pack bore the name of Swarm and were under the influence of a physical hive mind known as the Overmind. The shepherds of the Infinite Cycle tried to negotiate with Amon and his followers, but a war broke out over Zerus, and Amon sent the Swarm to kill the shepherds.

Amon seemed to be winning, but Ouros and the ten remaining shepherds fought back, refusing to allow the destruction of this universe. In the end, most of Amon's followers fell in battle and were sent into the Void after their bodies were severely wounded. Amon himself was defeated too and banished to the Void while his physical body had been destroyed, as he was deemed unworthy of it. Duran escaped and hid himself somewhere in this universe, but he wasn't considered a threat since he was still an inexperienced xel'naga.

Just before returning to slumber at Ulnar along with the other badly wounded shepherds, Ouros peeked into the Void to see how Amon and his followers were doing. The teacher was shocked to find that Amon had slain his own followers in a fit of rage. Very disappointed, Ouros went to his resting pod and resumed his slumber, hoping that the latest cycle would find a way to complete itself in spite of Amon tainting it.

But the xel'naga's peace was once again disturbed millennia later, because Duran set in motion a plan to awaken Amon – who had gone into a deep sleep in the Void – and help him regain physical form.

Ouros allowed his recovering fellow shepherds to continue their slumber while he took it upon himself to observe what Duran was doing. He realized far too late that our protagonist had followed him into this universe, so he had no choice but to let it in on what was happening. He said, 'I have spared little Duran in the hope that he would forget about Amon's horrible plan and see this world for its beauty. Yet here he is, still tinkering with the dreaded Swarm and preparing it to assimilate the protoss against their will. Oh, how foolish I was ...'

Our protagonist said, 'Maybe he could change. There still is hope. I could keep an eye on what he is doing while you can go rest. If he does anything bad, I will let you know.'

Ouros wrapped a tentacle around his pupil and said, 'I have a different plan for you, young one. I want you to take this information that I shall transfer into your mind, and use it to thwart Duran's plans when each of these prophecies come to pass. This world still has a chance to create a champion that could ascend as a new xel'naga. If Amon returns during that being's ascension, he will stand no chance, for a xel'naga is most powerful when still in its young form.'

'But am I not young too?' the former viriai asked.

To that, Ouros replied with, 'Your powers have lost some of their strength since your ascension. The xel'naga that is yet to be born will be the strongest one at that time, and will be the one to put an end to Amon's suffering.'

Our protagonist said, 'For everything Amon did, I think he deserves to suffer.'

But Ouros frowned, telling his pupil, 'His suffering started before he interfered with the Cycle. It is the reason why he has turned against us. We shepherds of the Infinite Cycle refuse to take the lives of other beings, but someone who can and is willing to do so could finally bring Amon the peace he seeks.'

His pupil asked, 'Where can I find this champion you speak of? Among the protoss? Among the zerg?'

'No,' Ouros said. 'There is a species that Amon has overlooked. One that, at this time, seems far too primitive to be worth our attention. Yet it shall stand on equal ground with the zerg and even the protoss, for it possesses both adaptability and psionic potential, but has not yet specialized in either. Its people call themselves humans, and can be found on a planet that possesses conditions that in some areas are friendly to many lifeforms, whereas in others they are so harsh that very few – if any – lifeforms can survive. That planet is Earth. Go there, and the path you must take will be made clear to you.'

Our protagonist took Ouros' orders and flew through the Milky Way galaxy, without the need for a spaceship, trying to find Earth. As it traveled among the stars for thousands of years, the young xel'naga felt a strange disturbance in the Void. Its mental connections to most of the other shepherds had been severed, and from Ouros' side there was a feeling of sadness. The young xel'naga wanted to return to Ulnar to see what happened there, but its teacher's last message to it was, 'Do not stray from our plan, no matter the reason!'

The xel'naga found Earth and turned invisible as it landed in a forest to recover its consumed energy. There, it disguised itself and started living the humble life of a small, slimy, limbless creature called a leopard slug.

After spending one hundred years … 'mingling' with the slugs – which sadly did not result in any eggs because its ascension made it sterile – the xel'naga had a vision. It learned that the humans initiated a chain of events that would eventually lead to the birth of Ouros' champion.

The xel'naga located the Nagglfar supercarrier – the spaceship which would carry some of the humans that would end up inhabiting the Koprulu Sector and calling themselves terrans. Turning invisible again, the xel'naga slid right into the Nagglfar. It was lucky that the humans had not noticed the trail of mucus left behind. Very careless to not cover one's tracks when sneaking around in the form of a slug.

Everything was going almost according to plan, except for one thing: the supercarrier's artificial intelligence, ATLAS, would not allow deviation from the planned trajectory toward planet Gantris VI. The xel'naga decided to mess with ATLAS in order to direct the Nagglfar toward the planet that would be called Tarsonis. It was from that planet that the terrans would spread over the Koprulu Sector, eventually bringing into existence Ouros' champion.

The xel'naga successfully changed the course of the Nagglfar and erased coordinates for Gantris VI and Earth so the passengers would not try to leave, but accidentally caused the crash of the other three supercarriers into other planets. The humans in the Nagglfar, Argo, and Reagan spaceships survived the crashes, but, unfortunately, the ones in the Sarengo were all killed once it smashed into the planet that would be known as Umoja.

Still disguised as a leopard slug, the xel'naga watched over the evolution of the Tarsonis terrans, witnessing a fascinating increase in the terrans' psionic potential with each generation. One day, the terrans made use of the strongest psychics among them by training them as soldiers called 'ghosts'. The xel'naga continued to watch from a safe distance until the day came when it had to disguise itself as a terran and interact with the species to learn more about it. But that is a story for another time.

It's getting late now. You should go to sleep, otherwise you'll be tired in the morning."

As the storyteller blew air onto the flames, the green fire went out, letting darkness take over. Then he said, "Sweet dreams!"

* * *

**To be continued.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Terran**

A new green campfire was lit, keeping the darkness away while the storyteller prepared to share another part of the tale.

"Where were we last night? Ah, yes. The part where our xel'naga observed the terrans.

For a bit over two centuries, the xel'naga continued to be a slug and kept a watchful eye on the terran colony established on Tarsonis. It snuck into the terrans' houses and observed their daily lives in order to get a better understanding of the species. It went well, for the most part. Except that one time when a female terran threw salt at the xel'naga for invading her kitchen. It's not a pleasant experience to make contact with salt when one is disguised as a slug.

Anyway, the xel'naga cloaked and rolled away while leaving a lot of foamy mucus behind. It escaped from the house and went into a lake to cleanse itself from any salt crystals, and then went to observe other terrans.

What it had learned up until then was that terrans can be male or female, and that their breeding requires one male and one female. However, it realized that terrans have strange mating habits compared to the xel'naga's former species. Sometimes the terrans mate just to bond with each other, without aiming to produce offspring. In some rare cases observed, their pairs consisted of two females or two males.

Another interesting fact about terrans: their females incubate the fertilized eggs inside them. They usually produce one or two offspring that still require further advanced care until they reach around three years of age and are capable of eating and walking on their own. Until they are eighteen years old, the offspring continue to need protection, nourishment, and education that their parents provide. This is in stark contrast to the viriai, who would lay anywhere between 70 and 100 eggs, which would hatch into offspring that could take care of themselves. The viriai did provide some protection to their species' younger members until they'd reach the age of thirteen years, but terran offspring require _way_ more care. It's probably one of the reasons why the terrans are such slow breeders compared to the viriai.

Some of the more recent terran offspring displayed high psionic capabilities. The Terran Confederacy – the government established on Tarsonis – became interested in these young terrans, and, once their members saw the unusual, untamed, and sometimes destructive psionic powers displayed by these psychics, they tried to recruit them. Some psychics accepted the invitations, but others declined them; the Confederacy still abducted them and added them to its military staff. Thus, these psychics were turned into wranglers – people sent to detect more powerful psionically-gifted terrans – or, if they scored high enough on the psionic index scale, ghosts – superior soldiers with telepathy and sometimes other psionic abilities.

The xel'naga figured that Ouros' champion might be among these ghosts, so it observed them on the battlefield. Some of them were sent to fight the zerg of the Swarm, and they excelled at the task. Among the ghosts, the members of the Shroud organization seemed to be the best of the best. The xel'naga learned that these elite ghosts would lend their services to the Confederacy, but due to their habit of always hanging out in groups of five to ten members at a time, the Confederacy never managed to gain full control of them. The Shroud members were usually dispatched to fight on fringe worlds, and they had never lost a member of their group.

Our protagonist thought that the champion might be one of the Shroud ghosts, and since it learned that the members of the organization had never shown their faces to anyone – not even to each other – it decided to disguise itself as one of them. That is how our xel'naga became a male terran in a black skinsuit that had chest armor, pauldrons for the shoulders, and a screen on the wrist to allow for long-distance communication. He also wore a mask that had green goggles – the left one having a larger lens than the right one – and a round, green light in the nose area. Below that light there was a breathing filter with vertical grills. He was indistinguishable from the other members of the Shroud.

Now prepared, the xel'naga hid in the sewers of Tarsonis and contacted the Shroud while standing in front a bright white light that illuminated the sewer corridor. He got a reply from one of the ghosts, who said, 'You have contacted the Shroud. What is the purpose of this call?'

The xel'naga said, 'I wish to enroll into your organization. I am a ghost like you, see?' He turned invisible and then revealed himself again.

The Shroud ghost rubbed the back of his head and looked around. He seemed very confused. Then he told the xel'naga, 'How did you find out about us?'

To that the xel'naga answered, 'I have read your minds while you were on the battlefield against the zerg.'

The Shroud ghost seemed a bit startled upon hearing that. He asked, 'What else have you learned about us?'

The xel'naga told him, 'Not much, except for the location of your hideout.'

Another ghost who sat behind the Shroud's spokesman asked his teammate, 'Is he threatening us?'

The spokesman told him, 'I don't know. What do we do?' After a moment of silence, during which they were most likely discussing telepathically among each other, the Shroud members nodded. The spokesman said, 'You can join. We won't stop you. The Shroud welcomes anyone who is powerful enough to read our shielded minds.'

Hearing that, the xel'naga teleported straight to the Shroud headquarters, which was an underground bunker protected by an advanced security system. Of course, that system was not meant to keep xel'naga out. He was about to go meet the Shroud members, but then he sensed their thoughts. Oh, no! They were expecting him to wear a conical straw hat because, during the transmission, the sewer lighting made the ventilation shaft grill in the background look like a sedge hat on his head!

Not wanting the Shroud members to be upset because they were wrong, the xel'naga traveled all over Tarsonis for an entire day to find straw. After acquiring the straw, he weaved it and obtained his very own sedge hat. Now he was ready!

He teleported back to the Shroud headquarters and met the ten members, who were all male terrans. They were utterly terrified of him. Their minds were full of questions about the immense psionic power of the new member, and they even wondered about the odd choice of wearing a hat over a ghost helmet. Still, they refrained from asking those questions, for fear of offending the new ghost.

He was given a room to decorate however he'd see fit. The xel'naga decided that white would look bright and clean, so he proceeded to use his psionic powers to create furniture, floor tiles, and even carpets of that color from raw materials. For some reason, seeing the finalized room scared the other Shroud members and made them question their new member's sanity.

The xel'naga spent two months with the Shroud, but they had not warmed up to him one bit. They didn't even take him with them whenever they went on missions, because they didn't want him to think they were trying to get rid of him. That caused the xel'naga to grow bored.

He roamed Tarsonis from time to time, and brought back baskets full of fresh fruit for his colleagues in an attempt to make them trust him more. Poor primitive creatures … They even feared the _fruit_.

During one of his many trips around Tarsonis, the xel'naga came across another male ghost, who was just as powerful as the Shroud members. This ghost was dressed in a red suit, and his mask had one large, red, glowing lens on the right side of the face, and two smaller ones on the left. His breathing filter extended from his nose down to his chin, broadened over his mouth.

The red ghost jumped out of the window of a hotel – a place where terrans usually stay to rest after traveling. He landed on the street, hid behind a dumpster, and used his rifle's red laser to point at the building.

The xel'naga read the ghost's mind, and heard the following thoughts:_ It's a pity I have to do this. She was such a nice person ... Good in bed too. Oh well … If I don't eliminate her, then the Confederacy's other ghosts will; probably in a very painful way too._

A nuclear missile flew across the sky and landed over the hotel, shattering the building to pieces and killing the female ghost who was still sleeping in the hotel.

Another female ghost appeared, dressed in a silver suit. She wore a visor over her eyes, the rest of her face not being covered. Her blond hair was tied in a ponytail. She gave a mean look to the red ghost, then said, 'You've murdered her too.'

The red ghost turned around to look at her, then said, 'I had to. You know what happened when I allowed the rogues to escape. I don't want to be given another excruciating headache. I don't want to get some new bruises on my back. And of course I don't want to get kicked in the nuts again!'

The female ghost crossed her arms at her chest and told him, 'How can you sleep at night after backstabbing your former associates like this?'

Looking her in the green lenses, he said, 'Without sleeping pills, I wouldn't be able to get a wink of sleep! I don't enjoy doing this. It hurts to know that I have to destroy all the trust I've built with these people. I understand their cause. It is a noble one. But the Confederacy's got me by the balls. They can track me down and torture me again and again. I don't want to do what they're making me do, but I have no choice.'

Clenching her fists, the female ghost said, 'If you really don't want to do this, and you don't want to be dragged back and tortured again, then why don't you just eliminate yourself? You have a gun. It's all you need.'

The male ghost was shaking after hearing that. He told her, 'I'm scared.'

'Of course you are,' she said, picking up a heavy boulder. She threw the boulder at his head and yelled, 'You coward!'

The red ghost could not avoid the hit, and collapsed at her feet. She picked up the boulder again and prepared to drop it over his head.

At that moment, the xel'naga stepped in and revealed himself, still disguised as a Shroud member.

The female ghost dropped the boulder next to the red ghost's head, then took a few steps back. 'An elite ghost?!' she said. In her mind, she worried that the Shroud agent would tell the Confederacy of her attack on her colleague. She feared that the hat-wearing ghost would also tell about her intent of turning against the Confederacy. Not wanting to let the agent read more of her thoughts, she cloaked and ran away.

The xel'naga could still sense her, so he could have chased her if he wanted to. However, the red ghost required immediate attention. He picked the unconscious ghost in his arms and wondered what to do with him. He couldn't drop him off at a hospital; they'd send the terran back to the Ghost Academy. Maybe some people unaffiliated with the Confederacy could take the ghost in.

After using his psionic power to disable the tracking device inside the red ghost's head, the xel'naga looked at the sky. He peered through time, trying to see if any spaceships would pass by Tarsonis any time soon. Fortunately, there was one on its way there. Unfortunately, it was full of pirates – terrans who steal to survive. Furthermore, the spaceship was shaped like a seafaring vessel the terrans call frigate. It didn't have any weaponry installed, just cannons for fireworks.

Thinking that the unusual spaceship was his only chance of saving the wounded ghost, the xel'naga hid the terran in an abandoned building and transformed into his xel'naga form, cloaking and flying toward the sky.

The spaceship was led by a somewhat plump male terran who had black facial hair under his nose and was dressed in red clothes with a red cap to match them. He seemed like an imposing figure, and his crew of armored marines and SCV worker pilots served him unquestionably. His name was Betelgeuse Thompson.

The arrival of the xel'naga on his ship confused him. He said, 'This shouldn't happen. I'm sure I put detectors all over the Frigate. How the hell did a ghost get in here?!'

The xel'naga shrugged and said, 'I was just lucky. Anyway, I've read your mind and found out that you are seeking more people to add to your crew. Are you interested in two ghosts?'

After pondering the possibilities of using ghosts to steal stuff for him, the captain replied with, 'I could use some ghost help, yeah.'

'Good,' the xel'naga said. 'I'll go get my associate. Wait here.' Cloaking, he changed back into his fiery form and flew back to Tarsonis.

The red ghost had not moved from the dusty old bed where the xel'naga left him. That did not seem to be a good sign.

Not disguising himself since he had to conserve energy, the xel'naga wrapped the terran in his tentacles and carried him out of the building. Just then, the terran woke up. He looked at the xel'naga and asked, 'Are you an angel?' Then he lost consciousness again, although he was happy. Happy that he might be dead and that he would be taken to paradise by a benevolent creature of terran legends.

The xel'naga felt flattered to be mistaken for such a beautiful creature, but at the same time felt sad for the ghost in his tentacles. Such a tortured soul, for whom death seemed like the only escape from life's pain. Maybe Amon and Duran felt like this too.

Cloaking, our protagonist flew to the sky, traveling all the way to the Frigate, which was floating in space. There, he disguised himself as a Shroud ghost again and carried the wounded terran to the captain. The red ghost was given a room with a bed and nothing much else. There was no staff that dealt with health-related problems on board, so the wounded terran was at the mercy of his own body's healing factor. By the way, terrans have pitiful self-healing abilities.

The red ghost spent the rest of that day sleeping. During that time, the xel'naga searched through the ghost's memories. There were inaccessible portions that looked like black chunks among images that were connected to each other. Many of the images were faded, on the verge of being forgotten and turning black too. They were from the red ghost's childhood, but his real name and important information about his parents and other relatives had been erased from all of them.

One particular memory was still bright and colorful – a sign that it was recalled at least once a day. But in spite of its appearance, it wasn't a happy memory. There was fear, anger, and disgust associated with that image. The xel'naga reached out with a psionic tendril toward that memory, and it started playing out as if it were happening right then and there. He saw how the red ghost – called by the number 24440 and the code name Playboy – was trained at the Ghost Academy. The so-called training involved forcing the ghost to mate with other people in order to, as the Confederates put it, desensitize him so he could seduce rogue agents, read their minds while their guard was down, and then kill them. Playboy didn't mind having to mate with the females, but when it came to mating with the males, while he disliked being the active one, he absolutely _hated_ being the passive one. The Confederates didn't care. They molded him into the living weapon they wanted, and they sent him after the rogue agents. Whenever he refused to kill his victims, he was punished with the help of a psi-screen – a machine that gave him unbearable headaches. He was also struck with batons and kicked while he was on the ground, curled up.

Saddened, the xel'naga put a hand over the helmet of the ghost and gently stroke it a few times. Then he left the room and allowed the terran to rest.

The next day, Playboy woke up and easily asserted himself among the Frigate's crew. He even managed to get a few hours of sleep at night without using sleeping pills. But there was one little problem. Even though he was very friendly toward the xel'naga – whom he nicknamed Hat Guy – he still feared the hat-wearing ghost.

Our protagonist chose to spend some time getting to know Playboy. He joined the red ghost in his room and said, 'I was the one who found you when you were unconscious.' Then he asked, 'Do you remember anything recent?'

Playboy sighed and told him, 'I don't remember anything except that I was on a mission. But thanks for saving me.'

'You're welcome,' said the xel'naga. After reading Playboy's mind again, he added, 'Oh, and don't worry about the tracker you have in your head. I've disabled it. The Confederacy will not come for you. You are free from their grasp.'

At that moment, the red ghost raised his fist and screamed, 'Woohoo! Finally! No more!' Then he gasped and asked, 'Could this be a dream? It's a dream, isn't it? There's no way I could be so lucky.'

The xel'naga said, 'Actually, you are.' Then he left Playboy's room.

A few days later, Captain Betelgeuse wanted to steal some minerals and vespene gas from the planet Nidhogg III. He prepared his crew … 'Prepared' is not really the word we're looking for here. He just told his crew to go steal the resources from some people who were also stealing them from other people. Terrans are strange like that.

Once the crew set foot on the planet, they snuck into the caves where the other thieves hid their stash. While Playboy and the xel'naga had an easy time carrying minerals back to the ship, two of the marines got in trouble with the other thieves' marines.

The captain ordered the rest of his crew to retreat and leave the captured marines behind, since he was too scared to fight. Hat Guy wondered if he should stay and rescue his teammates by himself. In the end he decided to do so. Playboy even cheered for him, saying, 'That's the spirit!' The xel'naga used his telekinesis to destroy the enemy marines' rifles and then pin the marines to the ground. Then he took a container of vespene gas and … um … Let's just say things got _really_ messy. That incident caused the terrans all over the Koprulu Sector to add a new act on the list of war crimes: turning people or aliens into vespene pies. It also led to the xel'naga becoming one of the most wanted people in the sector, with the specification that they wanted him shot on sight.

While the Frigate's crew feared the xel'naga for that incident, they still allowed him to stay with them. The plundered resources helped them buy the services of Brandon Keg and Michael Forge, two firebats – terrans who wore armored suits similar to marines, but with a pair of fuel tanks on their backs. Firebats could use arm-mounted flamethrowers to blow jets of fire at their enemies. The captain considered that they would come in handy in case of being faced with zerg. The xel'naga worried about the shaky health of Brandon.

A month later, the xel'naga sensed that there was a strong ghost on a planet nearby. The captain would surely like to have a third ghost on his crew, so Hat Guy thought of a way to make him land there without making anyone wonder why he was able to sense a ghost from such a distance. He went up to the captain and told him, 'I heard this planet to our left has some materials that could be used to produce nukes. I recommend we go grab some from its people's storage.'

'That's a great idea!' the captain said. 'We will land there in a few hours.'

So they landed. While most of the crew was busy stealing materials and fighting off the occasional guard, Hat Guy went searching for his target. He entered a factory and found a male ghost who was dressed entirely in green. The ghost's mask had goggles similar to Playboy's, but they were green and had the big lens on the left side. Also, the mask's air filter was triangular. This terran was agent 24655, his code name being Sniper. He deserved that code name, for he was able to kill three other terran ghosts in the factory by shooting their heads and not missing a single shot.

Sniper was about to leave the room he was in, but then heard screams from behind a door. He realized there were hostages in that room, so he contacted his team. 'Delay the nuking, sir! They have hostages in here,' he said.

Over the station, a male terran said, 'Not again, 24655! You keep wasting our time when you're rescuing random people. Get out of there! That is an order, soldier!'

Sniper insisted, 'Sir, call off the nuke.'

The voice said, 'Screw this! Good riddance! You're just a 7 anyway. I'll tell the commander you died on duty.'

Sniper told him, 'There are twelve civilians in here, sir. You will have them all on your conscience.' When his superior ignored him, the green ghost went to search for the computer that controlled the hostages' door. It was in the room all the way in the back of the factory. The hostages would still have time to get out alive, but he wouldn't. In spite of that, he decided to sacrifice himself for their sake.

The xel'naga was impressed with Sniper's respect for the life of others, so he decided to step in as soon as the hostages left the factory. He teleported into the room and psionically shielded Sniper from the blast.

When the smoke cleared up, Sniper had a lot of questions for the hat-wearing ghost. 'Who are you? What did you do? Are the civilians safe?'

The xel'naga told him, 'You can call me Hat Guy. I have saved you from the explosion. The civilians are safe. I have a proposition for you: join my crew, and I will help you cut your ties to the Confederacy.'

Sniper pondered for a bit, then he said, 'After what just happened here, I want to leave the Confeds more than ever. But … what would I be getting myself into?'

Hat Guy replied, 'A life of piracy. Sure, it's not exactly in line with your morals, but at least we don't nuke indiscriminately, and your tracker will be disabled.'

Sniper considered that the offer was good enough, so he told Hat Guy, 'I'll join your crew. Sounds better than sticking with these pieces of shit.'

And so, the Frigate's crew acquired a new ghost. One that the xel'naga kept under observation for a few days, because Sniper's mind was giving off bad vibes. Sniper himself wasn't a bad person. He did what he was ordered to do, and often tried to avoid hurting people who happened to be in the line of fire. He even saved neutral people from his own team's incompetence many times. But at the back of Sniper's mind there was always the fear of losing control. Had he lost control before? Was it the reason why the information of his entire past had been erased up until he graduated from the Ghost Academy?

Later that day, the xel'naga and the two ghosts went to the cafeteria-bar of the Frigate and picked a table where they could all sit, eat, drink, and discuss. Playboy called the table the 'ghost table'. The marines, firebats, and SCV pilots stuck to their own kinds, and the captain ate alone.

While Playboy was very social and talked to Hat Guy about nukes, drinks, food, and the people he regretted killing, Sniper preferred to say as few words as possible. All the xel'naga could figure from the green ghost was that he was good at sniping, and that he wanted to be a hunter so he could provide food for his rescuers.

During a raid on Tarsonis, the xel'naga spotted two wounded male terrans who drove pointy, levitating vehicles – vultures, named after some birds from Earth. He went up to them and inspected their minds. One was named Flynn Jones, and the other was Shifty Braxton. They were rebelling against the Confederacy. Who could blame them? The regime's cruelty would have to be stopped some day. But that day wasn't then. The xel'naga used his telekinesis to carry the two terrans and their vehicles after him, and presented them to the captain, who was happy to add them to the Frigate's crew.

Just before the Frigate would leave Tarsonis, the xel'naga had a vision. The Swarm would invade a planet where a gas originating from the Void had been stored by Amon for his future plans. The gas could increase the psionic potential of many creatures who can survive inhaling it. Duran would give order to the Swarm to harvest the gas and form the ultimate zerg – one that could generate enough power to awaken Amon. Hat Guy couldn't allow it to happen, so he hunted a rhynadon and acquired its leg in preparation for his next move.

Three days later, the xel'naga sensed that something disastrous was going to happen on Char, a planet covered mostly by ash and lava. There, some terrans would be attacked by protoss, who would kill them for harvesting minerals from their camp unknowingly.

The captain was enjoying a mug of beer in the cafeteria-bar when Hat Guy approached him with a piece of meat in his hands. He raised his eyebrows and waited for Hat Guy to talk.

Hat Guy said, 'Captain, do you think we could stop by Char so I could roast this exquisite rhynadon steak?'

'You want to barbecue that on _Char_?!' the captain asked. 'Why not just use the grill pan in the kitchen?'

Hat Guy replied, 'I think this steak deserves to be grilled under the best circumstances possible. The grill pan has nothing on the lava of Char.'

The captain was starting to sweat. He didn't want to waste fuel to go all the way to Char for such a ridiculous reason, but he feared that if he refused, his teammate might get angry. And, as the incident on Nidhogg III proved, getting Hat Guy angry could end messy. He said, 'I'll take you there; just let me finish my beer, please.'

Hat Guy allowed him to drink in peace. The Frigate traveled all the way to Char, and landed just in time to save the small team of terrans from the wrath of seven protoss archons – powerful beings surrounded by blue fire.

The terrans on Char used a color scheme of red and silver, to show they were affiliated with the Sons of Korhal, an anti-Confederation rebel group. Their leader, Arcturus Mengsk, abandoned the Char terrans to the protoss since he considered it was too risky to lose more troops attempting to save them.

Among these abandoned terrans – who were all male – a few of them stood out. Vulture pilot Sony Harris, a young terran with a lot of facial hair sticking out of his chin, and red glasses with round lenses covering his eyes. He seemed like he had the potential of being a good leader if given the chance to develop his skills. His minor telepathy that he kept secret from his colleagues was another asset that made him stand out the most. Then there was Tony Cooper, pilot of a tank – a machine that could destroy numerous weak creatures from long distances. He also had potential of becoming a great leader, but his declining health would hinder him too much. Another terran, Robert Miller, piloted a robotic walker called goliath. Harold Smith, an SCV pilot, also had some potential for becoming a leader, but he had yet to conquer his fears. Brian, a marine, was known for being a snarky guy, but he'd do anything to defend his teammates. The strongest member among them was a ghost who wore a similar suit to Sniper, but entirely blue. This ghost was known as Agent 40, and his code name was Ice, but his teammates nicknamed him Spook. They also had a large, round, flying vessel led by an artificial intelligence called Magellan. In total, this group of terrans had one vulture, one tank, one SCV, eight marines, one goliath, one science vessel, and one ghost.

After Hat Guy scared the protoss away by just being present there, he roasted the rhynadon steak, ate it, and returned to the Frigate along with the rescued terrans. They integrated themselves pretty fast into the Frigate's crew, and they ditched the red paint in favor of blue due to being angry about Mengsk abandoning them.

The xel'naga observed the terrans as they gathered in the cafeteria-bar. Little did he know, he was being watched too. He heard the thoughts: _This guy surely does a lot of squats! _

He looked behind to see Playboy, who flinched away while thinking: _Oh, crap. Ghost. I forgot._ Then Playboy said to Hat Guy, 'Sorry, sorry, sorry! I just … couldn't help but notice that you've trained a lot. That's all.'

Hat Guy knew that the red ghost was trying to suppress a sprouting thought, but the xel'naga didn't bring up the topic. He considered it would probably only make the terran feel even more stressed than he already was.

Spook was invited by the xel'naga and the other two ghosts to the ghost table. Much like Sniper, he didn't talk much. However, he wasn't trying to hide his thoughts. He had somehow managed to retain his memories from before going to the Ghost Academy. They weren't very pleasant memories. His friends died trying to stop the Confederates from capturing him. He was captured and trained to kill, even though he despised war and regarded life as valuable. The Ghost Academy surgeons replaced his eyes with artificial ones. And worst of all, he ended up with a destroyed spine after a tank pilot from his former Confederate team accidentally shot near him, sending him off the edge of a cliff. He was fitted with an artificial spine that could barely bend, just to be kept in service of the Confederacy for longer. He thought that the Sons of Korhal would have more concern for their soldiers, but realized that he was wrong after being abandoned on Char with his teammates. In spite of everything from his past, he still had one shred of hope that the Frigate crew could give him a reason to not give up on living.

The xel'naga knew that as soon as they would land on the planet where he needed to be, every last one of the terrans on the Frigate would have a purpose. Speaking of that planet, it was time for Hat Guy to tell the captain of the benefits of establishing a colony. He went up to him and said, 'Captain, I think it would be better if we would seek a planet where we could settle and live honest lives.'

The captain put down the piece of pie that he had been eating at the table, then said, 'You want us to stop being pirates. Are you kidding me?! We wouldn't even get a quarter of what we currently acquire!'

To that, Hat Guy said, 'True, but in time you could take over an entire planet and have all the resources for your colony. It is better than to risk losing your entire crew because of a failed raid.'

The captain seemed interested in the idea. He rubbed his chin while pondering the possibilities.

Hat Guy continued with, 'I happen to know of a planet rich in minerals and vespene gas. It belongs to nobody. Not many people know of its existence, so we might as well claim it before someone else does.'

Getting up from the table, Captain Betelgeuse said, 'Listen up, men! We are going to bag ourselves a planet. Prepare yourselves for colonizing it!'

And so, the Frigate traveled the Milky Way galaxy all the way to the aforementioned planet whose coordinates were revealed by Hat Guy. From outer space, the planet was blue, with some dark patches of water dividing its four continents.

After the spaceship landed, the terrans stepped onto the fine blue sand and looked around. Playboy said, 'This planet's like one giant desert. How are we supposed to colonize this place?'

Hat Guy told him, 'Well, it's not exactly a rainforest …'

Playboy cut him off to say, 'Rainforest. Heh …' There was a trace of sadness in his tone.

The xel'naga continued, '… but rest assured that there is enough organic matter to feed a small colony. We could rescue more terrans and add them to our crew. If Magellan is willing to help out, we could get into agriculture and become able to support a larger population in time.'

Magellan was an interesting entity. He had an almost human aspect, but he was split into three bodies with heads that had four eyes each – three on the right side, one on the left – and his torsos connected to each other in the waist area, rotating around a support. His real form was that of a software – a clump of instructions existing inside a machine. Normally, the xel'naga could not see anything resembling a mind within software and machinery, but Magellan was closer to a living creature than even ATLAS was. There was something strange about being able to read the AI's thoughts. They ran at a higher speed than that of living things, and they were simple, yet expressed complex details. A truly marvelous creation. The xel'naga suspected Magellan might even be capable of experiencing feelings. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, the xel'naga wasn't sure.

Anyway, one month passed, and the terrans settled in nicely on that planet, claiming a valley for themselves. In it, they've built two barracks for the ground troops, a factory for the pilots of war machines, a starport for Magellan's science vessel, an engineering bay in which to repair or improve weaponry, two refineries on vespene geysers, four supply depots for fuel and ammunition, and two command centers to house the SCV pilots and the collected resources. One of the centers had a scanning station, and another had a nuclear silo just in case something needed to be nuked.

Magellan used his remote-controlled robots to set up greenhouses and cold storage rooms inside his science vessel, as well as cook intricate delicacies for the entire crew. He teamed up with an SCV pilot named Leroy, who used his SCV to deliver the food to the cafeteria-bar of the Frigate so that no one had to go get their food and drinks by themselves anymore.

Sniper and Playboy hunted some creatures that would frequent the lake near the valley. The game they hunted added to the supply of diminishing meat in the cold storage rooms.

Hat Guy enjoyed studying the environment. The planet had only three terrestrial species of creatures, but its oceans had thousands of aquatic species. There were no actual plants there, but some of the aquatic and terrestrial creatures looked like colorful tree branches, some of which had formations that could pass for leaves.

Everything seemed nice and tidy, and the terrans were relaxed and happy. But Hat Guy knew that something nasty was going to happen the next day. The Swarm would be there. He thought about absorbing the gas so that the zerg would avoid the planet, but that would just lead to an even darker future where the zerg would have a way bigger army and would seek one of the several other sources of Void gas from the Milky Way. The xel'naga and the terrans had no better option than to remove that chunk of the Swarm for the universe's sake. So, Hat Guy went atop a mountain and meditated in preparation for the disaster that was heading their way.

The next day, as the crewmen were having breakfast in the cafeteria-bar, the Frigate's automated alert system – also known as the adjutant – warned of what sounded like the crew's SCVs being attacked.

Tony seemed shocked, saying, 'Someone's messing with our SCVs?! But how? They're all stored inside the command centers!'

Magellan used one of his vessel's cameras to record six of the Swarm's zerglings, which clawed away at a pair of four-wheeled vehicles called SUVs. He transmitted the recordings to a screen in the cafeteria-bar.

After seeing what was actually happening, Tony calmed down a bit, saying, 'Oh. _Those_ things.'

The captain slammed his fists onto the table as he shouted, 'The zerg being here are what we should be worried about! I heard they multiply like cockroaches! If we don't exterminate them now, we risk getting overrun by these ravenous beasts!'

Sony asked, 'So, what's the plan? Or are you gonna tell us to just go out there and attack?'

Giving the vulture pilot a nasty look, the captain replied, 'The plan is: our firebats go out there and kill those zerglings. You, big-mouthed vulture pilot, get to scout ahead and search for any hatcheries the zerg might have. If you see one, get back to the rest of the army and prepare to scrape that crap off the planet! Understood?'

Sony didn't seem too happy about just being sent to scout. He knew that hatcheries meant the zerg were ready to mine resources. If there were any zerg drones, they would be helping the zerg gain numbers fast. Killing the drones would mean stalling the zerg forces enough to allow his colleagues to fight them off. He had his mind set on his own plan, but he said to the captain, 'Yeah, yeah. I'm goin'.'

And so, the terran versus zerg conflict started. Sony put his plan into application, and even though he nearly got killed and had to be saved by Tony, he managed to stall the zerg's reproduction enough to make up for the captain's further mistakes.

Sony had a growing hatred not just for the incompetent captain, but for the SCV pilots as well, since he needed someone to repair his vehicle and there was nobody offering to do so, even for payment. His scuffle with Harold caused Spook to intervene by threatening to shoot Sony in the head if he'd not stop fighting with the SCV pilot. The xel'naga was considering jumping in between them to stop the conflict, but fortunately they all calmed down in the end.

Hat Guy could finally enjoy psionically picking apart the pancakes on his table. But he preferred that nobody observed him do that, and he was glad that Spook and Sony caused another distraction that allowed him to suck in all of the pancakes while nobody was looking.

What happened between Spook and Sony at that moment left the former with a lower faith in his colleagues, because they would have paid him just to get sensitive information about Sony for laughs.

Playboy, who had a bit too much to drink and was thinking about finding a mate, decided to try his luck by courting Spook. He thought that he could cheer up the blue ghost that way. Hat Guy warned him not to try that, as he knew Spook would react aggressively. Still, Playboy attempted it, and received a punch in the face and a rejection from Spook. Terrans' courtships are so strange … It seems terrans cannot notice who is receptive and who is not.

Later that night, Spook almost did something stupid due to his depression. If one of the marines hadn't attempted to unmask Hat Guy, the xel'naga would have failed to wake up in order to subtly discourage Spook from nuking the entire valley.

During the early stages of the war, the Frigate crew lost firebat Michael, a few marines, and vulture pilots Shifty and Flynn to the zerg. In spite of those deaths, the captain still didn't think of a plan to minimize losses, and thought he could just make Magellan genetically engineer children from the crew – all the while not taking into account the need for genetic diversity and the lack of staff for child raising. The captain's incompetence caused Sony to take over the crew on more than one occasion, improving their odds of survival during battles.

Hat Guy learned of two weaknesses of the zerg. The first was the zerglings' allergy to lemon juice. The second was that, upon evolving to survive hiding in the freshwater oceans of the planet, the zerg developed skin that allowed exchange of liquids pretty fast. The xel'naga remembered how much the salt hurt him when he was disguised as a slug, so he equipped himself with lemon bombs and salt bullets, which he knew would reduce the zerg's forces and make them think twice about attacking.

While he was training by lemon bomb joggling, he met a protoss probe – the worker machine of the protoss. It had two big eyes, two medium eyes, and four smaller ones. Its eight long fins made it easier for Hat Guy to pick it up. The best thing about the little robot was the band under its eyes; it looked like a wide smile. That was why Hat Guy named it Smiley.

Smiley was welcomed – although with a bit of concern – by the Frigate crew. It was unsure of how to get along with the terrans, and had a habit of warping in dangerous structures, such as gateways and photon cannons. It had a simple mind, similar to that of the slugs, but oriented toward harvesting resources.

Hat Guy enjoyed hanging out with Smiley from time to time, as the little probe became attached to the xel'naga and would bring shards of minerals to him. He was a bit disturbed to find out that Playboy was starting to look for a mate in all the wrong places – going as far as courting Smiley. As Smiley rejected the red ghost's advances, the xel'naga told the terran to not touch the probe inappropriately. What would Playboy even achieve by doing so? The robot would just zap him and cause a ruckus; and that was the last thing they needed while the zerg were still around.

The Swarm recovered their numbers and attacked again. Spook and Playboy dealt massive damage by nuking the zerg structures, and Sniper got rid of overlords by sniping them. The xel'naga made use of the lemon bombs, getting rid of many zerglings. Everything seemed to go well until Spook accidentally shot Sony in the arm, which led to tensions between the two terrans. They reluctantly got over the incident and started working together again later on.

As the terran army retreated, they were surprised to find that a hatchery stood in the Frigate's parking spot, between the two refineries. The captain wanted it nuked, but some of the crew members carefully removed the hatchery upon Hat Guy's suggestion. Later, the terrans discovered the purple gas – known as the 'Breath of Creation' to the protoss – which was found under one of the refineries. Hat Guy knew this was the gas from the Void, and told Smiley to gather it so the crew could use it.

The Swarm also acquired a few samples of the gas while that hatchery was there. They were already working on Duran's project while the terrans were trying to use the gas to improve their machinery as well as their ghosts' psionic potential.

Hat Guy took it upon himself to teach the ghosts how to use the gas. He also took it upon himself to prepare a special, very spicy omelet for the zerg. If the other ghosts wanted some omelets, the xel'naga would have happily made some for them too; just not as spicy. He gathered the ghosts inside a cave in the terran valley and passed a bong to each of them so they could inhale the gas from it. The gas would help them recover lost memories while making the ghosts stronger.

Playboy lost control of his newly-gained pyrokinesis for a bit while getting angry over finding out that the Confederacy took him away from his dream job – which apparently involved getting filmed while mating with female terrans. Hat also learned that Playboy's real name was Octavian Dice, known to many as Tavi.

Spook didn't feel any different after inhaling the gas, except that he learned of his real name – the only thing the Confederacy managed to take from his memories. He was Vincent Blight.

Sniper … had a tough time coming to terms with who he used to be. He had a terrible childhood. His mother tried to kill him to get her petty revenge on his father. Sniper, who used to be known as Timothy Linkman back then, fought back by stabbing his mother in the neck with a sharp object called scissors. He was punished for killing her, and wasn't doing any better when he became a teenager. His high school classmates bullied and mocked him. He snapped, ending up capturing, torturing, and killing the four bullies and getting caught by the Confederacy. He became a ghost because of scoring a 7 on the psionic index scale.

Learning of Sniper's past, Hat Guy warned him to not cause any trouble. The xel'naga was prepared to kill Sniper if needed, as he knew the dangers of the urges that ran through the terran's mind.

The ghosts revealed their faces to the marines and to Hat Guy. The xel'naga already knew what they looked like, but was glad he could see them be more open about who they were. Sniper had short, sandy hair, and blue eyes. Spook had short, black hair and artificial blue eyes, with a scarred left eyebrow. Tavi had long, curly, blond hair, blue eyes, and a stubble beard. The ghosts refused to show their faces to the captain, due to not having enough respect for him.

Once again attacking the zerg, the terrans found themselves in a bad situation, as Magellan's science vessel had been brought down by the zerg's powerful flying units called devourers – they looked kind of like really fat mutalisks. Luckily, some SCVs arrived to repair it.

While Tavi was aiming to distract a flying zerg queen by using his charm, Sony tried to set up spider mines as traps for the ground zerg. The problem with spider mines is that, if the enemy triggers them to explode, the blast will hurt anyone near them, regardless of affiliation. That is how two marines ended up getting blown to bits along with some zerglings. Sony was so ashamed of his failure that he drove away from his teammates, thinking of jumping into a deep, large chasm near the valley.

As if things weren't bad enough, Sniper cracked under pressure and the zerg queen that Tavi was keeping busy and told him to go nuke something. Then he turned against a marine who asked why Sniper didn't nuke anything. The bullet killed not just that marine, but a second one behind him. Knowing that he was in too deep, Sniper decided to take whoever wanted to come with him and hijack the Frigate.

Hat Guy had Sniper's head in his rifle's crosshairs. It was time to put an end to the madness. To his surprise, Tony was one step ahead of him, getting rid of Sniper, two rogue marines, and five zerglings. The xel'naga couldn't blame Tony for that. The deserters had to go, or else everyone would lose.

As the other terrans kept the zerg's numbers low, Hat Guy made use of the omelet by pouring pieces of it into some zerg detector structures called spore colonies. All of them shriveled after getting a taste of the spicy meal.

Tavi assisted Hat Guy by setting overlords on fire with his pyrokinesis. He also got rid of a zergling that tried to take Hat Guy by surprise. Then he offered to nuke the zerg hive – the most important structure the zerg had at that moment.

Hat Guy accepted his offer and waited for the nuke to land. But a zerg strain called a defiler appeared and hit Tavi with its plague, which ate away at the ghost's suit and flesh. Yet Tavi continued to aim in spite of the pain, and the nuke landed. He collapsed, in severe pain.

Hat Guy was trying to bring the hive down with the help of his rifle. He considered charging up a powerful attack, but by then the zerg would finish their project – the psionic zerg inside an egg at the base of the hive – and it would attack him and Tavi. So the rifle was better than nothing at that moment. But … Tavi would get torn to pieces by the psionic zerg either way. Would it be the right choice to remove the zerg's ability to acquire reinforcements while losing Tavi, the only person who was friendly toward him?

Tavi, who at that moment was barely hanging on to his consciousness, reached out toward Hat Guy and asked, 'Hey … is that … an angel?'

That reminded the xel'naga of their first interaction. He couldn't leave Tavi to die like that. Besides, he needed a powerful ally to help him defeat the psionic zerg once it would hatch. So, he picked Tavi up and ran with him over his shoulder. The egg hatched into a giant zergling and used its pisonic powers to destroy their communication devices, then attempted to grab them with its claws. However, they escaped, and the zergling could not get past the bunkers of the terrans at the exit of the zerg's valley.

When Tavi regained consciousness after being placed over the ghost table, he was sad that Hat Guy chose to rescue him instead of finishing off the hive. He feared that he would be stuck on that planet forever, with no chance of finding a partner.

The xel'naga would have offered to be his partner, but Ouros' orders took priority. He had to leave when the war would end. Peeking inside Tavi's mind, Hat Guy saw dark thoughts ... Tavi wanted to take his own life. Hat Guy tried to see what would happen to the crew within the next few days. The good news was that, in three more days, the captain would be removed by the crew, and the Frigate would fall under their control. The bad news was that, given the situation at that moment, Tavi's body would be hanging from a rope somewhere in the cave.

Tavi continued to sob on top of the ghost table while Hat Guy told him to hang on for three more days until the crew would be free to explore space and find more terrans. Nothing seemed to change in the possible future the xel'naga saw. Tavi would still end up in the noose.

Meanwhile, Spook convinced Sony to not jump into the chasm. At least someone managed to save a life … As reward, the xel'naga showed Spook a dream. A dream that revealed what could have happened if Spook had nuked the valley. In it, all of his colleagues died in the explosions and fire while he died eaten alive by the Swarm, but Tony's heart attack saddened the blue ghost the most. That dream, coupled with waking up to find out that Brandon had died due to lung cancer, made Spook warn Magellan about Tony's heart problem. The xel'naga knew that only good would come from that decision.

Later that day, Tavi and Hat Guy spent some more time together. At first they discussed about Smiley's habit of retrieving mineral shards. Then they discussed what they were going to do if they'd finally be allowed to leave the planet. Hat Guy said he wanted to travel some more. Tavi … wanted a family, or at the very least a partner. In the back of his mind, he even imagined Hat Guy as the one with whom he'd like to spend the rest of his life. Yet he tried to hide those thoughts, fearing how his colleague would react to them.

The truth is, the xel'naga wanted to react by hugging the terran and assuring him that he wanted the same thing, but … that was not the way he _had_ to react. He had a mission, and he could not afford to be wasting too much time among the mortals. Heh, mortals ... As if he weren't one who could die … But as I was saying, even if Tavi had admitted his love for Hat Guy, it was just never meant to be. The xel'naga would still have to fly toward the next destination soon after the zerg problem was eliminated, and Tavi could end up being a liability to him.

The psionic zergling escaped the containment area and headed straight for the terran valley, where it knew there was more gas it could use. But Hat Guy and Tavi were waiting for it there while the rest of the army was dealing with the weaker zerg forces.

The captain tried to abandon his crew and leave the planet, but Hat Guy stopped the Frigate's departure with his telekinesis. The psionic zergling took advantage of the distracted xel'naga and tried to use its scythe on him. Tavi pushed Hat Guy out of the way, apologizing for landing awkwardly on top of him. The zergling swatted Tavi away and tried to pierce the red ghost with a scythe. That was when Hat Guy jumped on top of Tavi to keep the scythe away from him. While they both thought it wasn't really a bad way to die, they agreed that they had to survive for the sake of their crew. They freed themselves from the zergling's claws with their psionic powers, and then hid inside a command center, charging up psionic lashes. The attacks were strong enough to destroy the psionic zergling, which Hat Guy covertly consumed in order to regain his lost energy.

The captain made one last mistake that cost him the trust of his entire crew: he did not allow seven of the SCVs to go with Sony and the others. Hat Guy told him to clear the terran valley, but due to the captain's stubbornness, the SCV pilots got infested by a zerg queen who took over the damaged command center. Those SCV pilots were killed by the crew to put them out of their misery. Also, the captain somehow managed to drag eight zerglings and one ultralisk along with Hat Guy and Tavi with the Frigate, and then landed over Tony's tank. It was an embarrassing situation to say the least.

Since Spook had been killed, there was no one else to nuke the severely damaged zerg hive. Sony took the rifle of the deceased blue ghost and used it to aim a nuke at the hive. He told his friends how much he appreciated that he had worked alongside them and how he hoped the captain would get what he deserved. Then the nuke landed. It eliminated the hive along with Sony, and ended the war.

Tavi wanted to confess his feelings to Hat Guy, but decided to wait until morning out of respect for their fallen comrades.

Unfortunately, in that morning the xel'naga had to leave. But before leaving, he decided to spend a few moments with Tavi – even if he'd have to invade his dreams. He thought that if Tavi might not change his mind about … leaving this world too soon, at least the red ghost could experience some happiness.

Starting the process of transforming back into his xel'naga form, Hat Guy became a humanoid figure of green fire as he stood next to the door of the barracks. He used his mind to enter Tavi's dreams, and created a rainforest environment in them. Tavi never got the chance to see what it was like to explore a rainforest in reality, and he was so envious that he wanted to nuke rainforests so other people would not visit them either. But finding himself in such a beautiful place made him feel at peace.

The xel'naga revealed himself to Tavi. At first he was afraid that the terran would be disgusted by his true form, but Tavi was all the more fascinated to witness what Hat Guy really looked like. So, the xel'naga wrapped his tentacles around the red ghost, who embraced him back. At that moment, they were overwhelmed by the urge to mate with each other, so they gave in. The terran was very fond of the tentacles … Oh, sorry, too much information.

As the dream was ending, the xel'naga tried one last time to change Tavi's fate. He told Tavi once more to not give up hope, since the Frigate's crew would be free to leave soon.

There was no point in wasting energy to check the future again. Whatever would happen, would happen. If only it were possible to breed in spite of ascension … The xel'naga would have laid a clutch of eggs for the terran, giving Tavi some offspring – a reason to live.

After our protagonist said his goodbyes to Smiley and left his sedge hat with the probe in the cave, he flew into the chasm, where he would finish transforming back into his fiery winged form.

Tavi, Brian, Smiley, and Tony searched for Hat Guy upon noticing that he went missing. They witnessed the xel'naga take to the sky and absorb the remaining 'Breath of Creation' for extra energy. Only Tavi was sure the fiery being was Hat Guy, due to the dream. The red ghost felt played by the xel'naga. If only there was more time to explain the situation … But the xel'naga left the planet, because it was time to find Ouros' champion.

Fate led our xel'naga back to Char, where a very powerful being of zerg and terran essence surrounded a protoss with three zerg ultralisks. This entity, who had a zerg body shaped like that of a female terran, and wing-like claws sprouting from her back, used to be the strongest ghost the terrans had. She was known as Sarah Kerrigan. But after becoming infested by the zerg, she became the Queen of Blades. She had betrayed her allies and was working with … Duran, who disguised himself as a terran ghost and pretended to be infested. This Queen of Blades was supposed to be Ouros' champion?! This creature was the one for whom Ouros was going to give up his life?! Hat Guy thought there had to be some mistake.

The Queen of Blades sensed Hat Guy's presence, but, when she turned around, all she could see was an insignificant little slug on a branched rock formation. She ignored the creature and went into her overlord, which transported her away.

Hat Guy decided to cloak and travel back to Ulnar to ask Ouros some questions, _if_ the teacher was still there after whatever happened long ago.

Arriving at Ulnar, Hat Guy was in for an unpleasant surprise. The sleeping pods of the other xel'naga had been toppled and damaged. All of the shepherds of the Infinite Cycle had died before they even managed to exit their pods properly. But Ouros wasn't among them. As Hat Guy explored the scene of the crime, he saw … Ouros' snout tentacle! It was on the ground, cold and lifeless. He picked it up and hugged it in sorrow. What had happened to the teacher?

The answer would lie within the fading memories of the xel'naga corpses. Putting a fiery tentacle over the heads of the bodies, Hat Guy found out that Ouros had returned to awaken the shepherds of the Cycle and tell them of Duran and the forged zerg-protoss hybrid that were to come. One of his snout tentacles was missing due to having faced some zerg on his way there, but it wasn't the same tentacle that Hat Guy found.

Prior to returning to Ulnar, Ouros had left a prophecy on a moon called Ulaan, hoping that someone would find out about the hybrid and the vision given to the great hungerer known as the Overmind. Learning that the Queen of Blades would be the champion of light, Ouros wanted to engrave a final warning in Ulnar's stones. He hoped that the protoss who would be there would not kill her, but instead defend her from the hybrid when the prophecy came to pass.

Before Ouros could write the last prophecy, the zerg broke into the temple and attacked the shepherds, but left Ouros safe from harm. Then Duran showed up, in his pre-ascension form, as a creature with a head decorated by many curved horns. His eyes glowed bright red, and his four long arms had red, glowing, sharp claws just like his feet had. He was the one who cut Ouros' other snout tentacle! That dirty, despicable piece of … Ahem! Anyway, after killing all of the other xel'naga, Duran sent Ouros into the Void, where Amon wanted Ouros kept as prisoner out of the respect he still held for the teacher.

It became clear to Hat Guy what Ouros' wish was. He picked a nice slab of stone and engraved the illustration of the hybrid, and below it … another illustration representing the Queen of Blades at the mercy of the hybrid.

Once he finished drawing the prophecy, he placed the slab between the illustrated prophecy of a protoss cradling a dead protoss, and the illustrated prophecy of a planet that would be destroyed. The union of the drawn prophecies formed a neat triangle.

With that out of the way, Hat Guy spread his wings once more and flew toward his next destination. Where was he going? Well, it was time for him to get to know the protoss species. But I will tell you all about that tomorrow, because now it's getting late."

The storyteller stomped onto the green flame with his four-clawed, scaly black foot, extinguishing the fire. Then he said, "Good night!"

* * *

**To be continued.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Protoss**

Once more, the green campfire provided the light, and the storyteller provided the tale.

"Tonight I shall tell you about the time when our xel'naga associated with the protoss, a mighty race of intelligent, graceful creatures originating from planet Aiur, and whose evolution had sadly been tainted by Amon.

While the terrans were adjusting to switching from one tyrannical regime to _yet_ _another_ tyrannical regime called the Terran Dominion, the protoss were, for the most part, under good leadership. The exception would be for the Tal'darim, a sect of protoss whose members worship Amon and live by the rules of survival of the fittest.

The Tal'darim use the Void gas – which they have named the 'Breath of Creation' – to get closer to Amon and increase their psionic powers. But too much of it can drive even a protoss insane. Terrans are lucky, because they can take some golden crystals called jorium. I forgot to mention that our xel'naga administered some jorium capsules to the ghosts he had exposed to the Void gas. He did so to spare them the experiencing of horrible side effects such as: hallucinations, extreme aggressiveness, addiction to the gas, and the sudden urge to join Amon's death cult.

Now let's talk about the other two types of protoss, which are friendlier toward their own members.

The Khalai are the users of a psionic link called the Khala, which allows them great power and the ability to store their knowledge inside of it. The knowledge would remain even after the passing of the protoss it belonged to. They are capable of connecting to the Khala through the help of their nerve cords, which also serve as their hair.

Then we have the Nerazim. They have considered that individuality is more important than being chained to the emotions of the collective. This drove them to separate themselves from the Khala by cutting their nerve cords. Once freed from it, they draw their power from the Void itself. Most of the Nerazim make use of the ability to remain hidden in plain sight. The protoss clans that subscribe to the Nerazim's way of life are numerous. They used to be hated and seen as traitors by the Khalai, and were driven away to Shakuras. But after the Nerazim helped defeat the Swarm's Overmind, both sides came together under Hierarch Artanis' leadership.

Our xel'naga disguised himself as the unassuming leopard slug, infiltrating among both the Khalai and the Nerazim. It studied the protoss, and the protoss studied the slug. They could not read the xel'naga's mind, but they could sense the immense power coming from the little creature. Due to their beliefs, the protoss did not harm it, and would always put it back in nature once they were done studying it.

After spending more time with the Khalai and the Nerazim, the xel'naga learned that the protoss do not have mouths; they only need to be exposed to light and air moisture to get all they need to survive. They communicate through telepathy, and can even share mental images with any living being. They differ in the way they breed, and how they form families. Both types have a slow rate of reproduction, but the Khalai rely mostly on technology to produce young, while the Nerazim require a pair of male and female of their kind and have two ways of reproducing. Those who came from the planet Lorcadia lay eggs at the bottom of the sea and fertilize them after being laid, while the ones coming from other clans mate first, then their females give birth to live young. If you thought terrans were the slowest at growing up, you haven't seen the protoss younglings. They are infants until they reach five years of age, being unable to walk or even communicate properly through telepathy. However, feeding them is much, much easier than feeding a terran infant.

Knowing enough about the protoss, it was time for our protagonist to disguise as one of them and move on to the next part of the plan to save the universe. It saw the beautiful Khalai executor Selendis, who had a slender body and a pair of long antennae. Her appearance would serve as a nice base, so the xel'naga became a female protoss similar to her, but with dark gray skin, green eyes, and short, severed nerve cords – just to blend in with the Nerazim. In this new form, the xel'naga had scarcely covered herself with silver armor, black cloths, bandanna, and a cape split in two, then she wandered among the Nerazim, earning the name Lady in Black.

Lady in Black chose to join the Atum tribe, mainly because it reminded her of the Frigate's crew; they too wandered the galaxy, taking in any fellow protoss they came across. The only requirement for joining the Atum tribe was the removal of one's nerve cords. Doing so was a declaration that the newcomer has dissociated from the followers of the Khala. Most of their tribe members – especially the high ranking ones – wore bandannas, but it wasn't a requirement.

The leader – or prelate – of the Atum tribe was Alys'tor, also known as the Wise One. He was an old dark templar – a warrior who can hide in the shadows and strike foes unexpectedly. Alys'tor had lost his wife in the war between the Khalai and the Nerazim. All that remained of his family was his son, Makatai.

Makatai chose to become a dark templar too, being inspired by his father. While Alys'tor was quick to trust Lady in Black in spite of her teleporting uninvited aboard his void ray spaceship, Makatai was suspicious of her, due to her great power and her concealed mind.

The Atum tribe extensively used technology developed by the Nerazim, employing flying ships such as the oracle and the void ray, which could fry enemies with their lasers. Their older ships, the corsairs, were able to use disruption webs to deny enemy ground troops the ability to attack. The tribe's severely wounded warriors were put inside annihilators – cybernetic war machines with two double cannons that can blast most things to pieces with ease. Many protoss of the tribe volunteered to be put inside striders to become Stalkers – a merging between a Nerazim's essence and a war machine. Of course, the tribe also made use of old Khalai technology such as cloaked detection units called observers and the workers called probes. Their newer probes didn't look like Smiley at all; they were mostly silver, with a single, large green eye each, and much shorter fins. These modifications apparently made them move faster, increasing their harvesting efficiency. Even the tribe's lower rank ground troops – the centurions who were capable of phasing through enemies – wore power suits invented by the Khalai.

On the psionics side, a few tribe members originating from Lorcadia took on the roles of signifiers. A signifier is the high templar of the Nerazim, and is capable of unleashing strong, crippling psionic storms that could spiral out of control if the signifier is poorly trained. Much like their Khalai counterparts, they can also launch psionic blasts out of their hands when they need to conserve their energy in a fight. They can levitate at will, and wear outfits without much armor, looking elegant with their dark blue cloths that wave in the wind.

Now that you have a general idea of the Atum tribe, I can tell you how they found a place they could call home. Our xel'naga wanted to direct them toward an ice planet that had large amounts of Void gas on it. Why that particular planet? Because the Swarm's zerg hated the cold, meaning that they would avoid it for a long time. Duran would have to find a way to invade it, and by that time Lady in Black would have absorbed the gas, leaving nothing behind for him.

Convincing the prelate to pick that particular planet was easy, especially after the xel'naga told him that the zerg do not like very low temperatures. She left out the details about the Void gas, hoping that they would not discover it before she'd absorb it and perform her disappearing act.

Unfortunately for her, during the colonization process, a probe accidentally came across the Void gas geyser after digging up some useful metals. Darn it!

The prelate was aware of the gas' powers and of the name given to it by the Tal'darim. He considered storing it in case their tribe ever needed it. Lady in Black – who had become one of his advisers – told him to avoid using it, since it could do more harm than good. He also had four other advisers: three male dark templar called Nandu, Solash, and Khartal, and a female dark templar called Xnora. Together with Lady in Black, they formed the prelate's council.

Alys'tor named the planet Cylas, which he said is just a name he made up on the spot. Though I must say, it _does_ fit it, as the place is pretty chilly and covered in snow all the time. Good thing the protoss and the xel'naga had nearly perfect bodies that could stand such extreme temperatures.

Curiosity made the xel'naga stick around for a while longer to observe the progress the tribe had made with building their little village in the middle of a forest. Yes, Cylas had vegetation – mostly trees and shrubs with spiky leaves and inedible fruit. A few rare species of parasitic plants produced edible berries, on which the local fauna fed. The creatures that lived there were white and had a lot of fat underneath their fur or feathers and skin.

After about two months, the xel'naga decided that it was time to leave during one night. She made sure that most of the protoss were asleep, then she cloaked and went past the guards to get to the Forbidden Temple. Said temple was built underneath the ground, and in it the Void gas had been stored in cubic containers. She thought it would be very easy for her to just teleport inside, absorb the gas, and then transform and fly out of the temple while the protoss watched in bewilderment. But things aren't always that simple.

A new vision showed her that Duran had learned of Cylas' location and would eventually send an army of terrans after its Void gas. The approximated time it would take for that event to happen would be two years. By then, the Atum tribe will have established their own civilization on Cylas, and they would not want to abandon the planet. They would defend it until the last of them fell. She could not let that happen.

The prelate had already set in motion the construction of a temple where the tribe's children would be cared for while the other protoss were busy working. Basically, it would be a daycare. Many of the tribe's members were already planning on increasing their families, and some had already laid eggs in a lake in the middle of the village. It was a disaster! The xel'naga would have a difficult time convincing them all to pack up and leave, given the circumstances. She even considered scaring them away, but they'd only end up attacking her and dying in their attempts to kill her. Telling them the truth was not an option either. If they learned that she was a xel'naga, chaos would break loose among the tribe's members. Some of the Nerazim praised the xel'naga species while others had a deep resentment for Amon and the rest, who had abandoned the protoss on Aiur.

So what was there to do? Well … sticking around until the terrans showed up. It took two years, but it finally happened. A large terran spaceship landed near the forest and sent out their SCVs to dig for the Void gas. They found nothing. But instead of leaving, they decided to search the entire planet.

The tribe's observer drones sent video footage of the armed terran marines heading toward the forest. Alys'tor gathered his best ground troops and went to greet the marines in hopes of establishing peaceful relations with them. Unfortunately, the terrans acted so paranoid that no discussion could be started with them. Bullets were shot until the Nerazim warriors' plasma shields failed. Many of the tribe's people were severely wounded and forced to retreat.

Meanwhile, the terrans had set up their base around their giant ship and were preparing their army. They even shot the observers from the sky, leaving the Atum tribe with only three observers. One such drone spotted a terran aircraft that flew and crashed over a mountain near the forest.

Lady in Black was curious to see what she would find if she would go there, so she peered through time and saw … a red fallen raven drone and a terran ghost inside it. The ghost was a young man, somewhere around twenty years old, brown eyed, and had short red hair that had a tuft hanging over his forehead. His two front upper teeth stuck out from under his upper lip. His ghost suit was entirely white, and he had a backpack equipped. He was trying to fly the raven, and succeeded in plunging it into a frozen lake near the mountain, but died when the raven locked him inside. Or at least that is what would have happened if she had not made some changes to the way the events would go.

She told the prelate that it would be a good idea to acquire the raven, as it would serve as a mobile detector that could also defend the village. He agreed to go there with her and two void rays so they could take the raven.

When they got there, the ghost was about to force the raven to take off, but he stopped when he realized he could get killed if the void rays fired at the raven, who was upside-down.

Alys'tor said, 'It is in a bad state, but it could probably be repaired.'

That was when the raven began to plead in a monotone voice, putting accents on the wrong syllables: 'Protoss, this vessel begs you to help it. The UED scum inside must be destroyed before he does any further damage to this vessel.'

Then the ghost showed up from the raven's underside hatch, with his hands held high. He said, 'I srndr! Dun shoot! I suradr!'

Alys'tor was confused. He turned to Lady in Black, expecting a translation. She was happy to provide one. 'The terran surrenders, prelate. He seems to have received severe damage to his brain, which is why it might be difficult for you to understand what he's trying to say.'

The prelate pondered for a bit, then said, 'Terrans, I am willing to spare you two. All I ask is that you have a peaceful discussion with us, and explain to us why you have attacked us.'

The ghost shrugged and said, 'I dunno! I nat wi' 'em!'

The raven said, 'My people want the gas. That is all this vessel knows.'

Alys'tor ordered Nandu, Xnora, Khartal, and Solash to come drag the raven to the village. The ghost followed them out of his own will. And so, the Atum tribe acquired two terran members.

The raven was simply called Raven, since that was what the terrans had named his AI. He reminded the xel'naga of Magellan, since Raven's mind was also very close to that of a living creature. Smiley and the other probes were almost at his level of intelligence, but they acted more like animals than sapient beings.

Speaking of probes, the ghost – whom the xel'naga nicknamed Garf since not even _he_ could remember how to say his own name – was trying to pet one of the little robots. Probes don't like it when anyone or anything gets into their mineral line. They let out high-pitched growls and zap at the intruder until it's either out of their designated working area or is destroyed. So Garf was subjected to that, getting covered in a pile of probes. He was lucky that Khar, a daughter of two signifiers, pulled him out of there before the probes could roast him.

Lady in Black decided to keep him under supervision for a while, just so he'd not get into more trouble. She looked into his mind to see what was going on in there. His mind looked like a broken mirror. Garf still had many memories of his past, but most of the recent ones seemed very faded and fractured while the rest of them were completely black. His thoughts were also distorted, but he somehow managed to form coherent thoughts after a bit of effort. He had a weak telekinetic ability that would activate sometimes when he experienced intense emotions. It attracted objects toward him as if he were a magnet. The xel'naga knew this was no normal brain injury. Something with great psionic power did this to the ghost.

The aforementioned Khar took it upon herself to run the daycare at the Temple of Young. She had to take them for walks daily so they could get their required dose of sunlight. To minimize the risk of losing the younglings in an attack, she took only a few with her per trip.

Alys'tor ordered the probes to warp in six photon cannons to guard the Temple of Young and the Forbidden Temple behind it. He also ordered a new batch of observers as he went to fight the hostile terrans outside the forest again. The prelate fought with great bravery, and was mainly defending himself and his people, trying to negotiate with the terrans for an entire week. But it was all in vain, for the terrans continued to shoot, and even brought the heavily armored next generation firebats to fry the dark templar and the centurions. The terran aircrafts called vikings chased away the protoss ships, leaving the tribe's ground troops nearly defenseless.

In a last effort to defend their severely wounded leader and friend, Nandu merged with Xnora, and Khartal merged with Solash. This resulted in two dark archons, which were similar to the Khalai archons, but their flames were red, and they could consume energy and take control of other creatures' minds. They tried to take control of some marines, but Alys'tor ordered them to never use mind control. He received a fatal shot, and his suit teleported him away before Lady in Black could finish beating the crap out of a large group of firebats that held her back.

Makatai gathered his childhood friends, alongside whom he had trained for many decades, and chose to attack a group of marines that were approaching the forest. He thought it would be easy, but there were two things he did not take into consideration before he ordered his comrades to attack terran marines. One: the terrans had launched satellites that could detect hidden entities in any area of the planet on request. Two: they were dealing with terran marines, who could attack from the distance while dodging the dark templar's blades.

Sure, many of those marines died and only one survived, but Makatai lost all of his friends. It was just him and that one marine. A marine who was one scan away from killing Makatai. Fortunately, Lady in Black arrived just at the right moment and summoned a scythe of green light, which she sank into the marine's head, killing him instantly.

Makatai wasn't happy about the kill steal, unaware of what his fate would have been otherwise. After Lady in Black told him of his father's situation, he rushed to see him one last time before the old prelate died and turned to dust. For some reason, the Nerazim who have high psionic powers share his fate upon death, while the ones with less power leave their bodies behind.

At that time, Garf had piloted Raven back to the mountain, telling the drone that he needed help with detecting edible roots. Nandu-Xnora and Khartal-Solash found the ghost with a smug grin on his face while Raven was slowly sinking into a lake nearby and pleading for help.

The dark archons pulled Raven out of the lake, and one of them chased Garf down. The ghost put his mask on and cloaked, but when he ran out of energy, Khartal-Solash snatched his mask, ensuring he could not cloak anymore. They caught him and stripped him of his recovered energy as punishment. Nandu-Xnora also stripped Raven of energy to ensure that he would not throw turrets at the ghost in revenge.

Lady in Black found them and told them that Alys'tor wants them all present at the palace before he dies. The two dark archons, the ghost, and the raven agreed to go with her.

Alys'tor chose Makatai as his successor to leadership, but Makatai did not want to become the next prelate. Lady in Black encouraged him to take on the role, and the two dark archons became his advisers alongside her. He decided to go meditate in the mountains before deciding if he would accept the position or not.

Meanwhile, Khar was tasked with making a wreath for the fallen – a wreath made from the branches and a single cone of the forest's trees. Prior to their arrival on Cylas, the members of the Atum tribe used similar trees to make these wreaths. The decoration would be put around the grave markings for their loved ones, as a promise that they would join them in the afterlife. Khar and some of the younglings made one for Alys'tor's grave.

After learning the meaning of the wreath, Lady in Black asked Khar to teach her how to make one, and she accepted her request. The xel'naga thought that, if Tavi was indeed no more, she could go back to the planet where the Frigate was last seen, and then she could put the wreath around his gravestone – assuming the crew bothered to sculpt him one.

It snowed a lot on the night after the old prelate's funeral. In the morning, Lady in Black teleported to Makatai's favorite mountain, and found Makatai in a pile of snow, sleeping. She woke him up, and after some more talking, she convinced him to become the new prelate. He went with her to the palace, where Makatai received a new suit of armor and was declared the tribe's new leader. This gave the Atum tribe hope that they would be led to victory against the aggressive terrans. But hope and reality don't always match.

You see, the young prelate had never bothered to learn about managing production of weaponry, armory, and war machinery, so the village ended up having no observers after the last ones got destroyed before Alys'tor's death. He had not even ordered any probes to place photon cannons inside the village. Instead, he sent the probes out to contain the terrans with the cannons. That action would come to bite him in the ass later on.

Meanwhile, Lady in Black wandered the forest to keep an eye out for any terrans, because she sensed that there might be some lurking about. She also found Garf, who was trying – and failing – to hunt some animals for food. His failure wasn't because of lack of skills in shooting; ghosts are usually sharpshooters. It was because he was too sensitive and could not bring himself to kill creatures.

The xel'naga took pity on the weak ghost, giving him some berries she had picked from the tip of a tree. Then she reminded Garf that had he not been trying to destroy Raven, he'd have someone to help him detect edible roots. He still refused to work with the drone, saying that ravens and ghosts are enemies. Lady in Black told him that he'd be on his own then, and afterwards she left to patrol the forest.

She saw a terran vehicle drive by. It didn't look like any she had seen before. It was taller than a tank, had four threaded wheels that looked like legs, and its weapons were two missile launchers that had multiple holes in them, allowing them to rapidly throw many small missiles with which it brought down trees.

A bit further from the vehicle, two protoss younglings were running in fear. They ended up cornered by the vehicle while Khar was running toward them to save them. But Garf was faster, cloaking and jumping in front of the attacker to block it.

A male terran came out of the vehicle, wondering if the younglings had anything to do with his cyclone being unable to move. He threatened to kill the little protoss, believing that he would make it easier for his faction to win the war.

Fortunately, Garf caught him in a headlock and pulled him away from them. But the driver, whose name was Frank, applied his usual fighting tactic to escape the headlock: he kicked Garf in the gonads.

Lady in Black considered teleporting and stepping in, but she foresaw that Khar would use a crippling psionic storm against the cyclone, which could cause a forest fire. The xel'naga needed to conserve energy, so she ran all the way there and stopped the storm before it went out of control.

Garf and Khar were safe, and Frank abandoned his cyclone, running away scared of the storm that had damaged his vehicle earlier. Lady told Khar to train if she wanted to protect the younglings.

The ghost seemed to have developed an attraction to Khar, and he even accepted her invitation to the Temple of Young. The xel'naga didn't pay much attention to the situation, because there were more serious matters to attend to: the enemy terrans were preparing to break the containment by using nuclear missiles.

Once the terrans broke free, another battle between the protoss and terrans started, and resulted in the protoss retreating back into the forest.

There was this stalker, Gorgas, who sought someone to bear his offspring, since he feared he would die in battle and never get the chance to assign who would have rights to his … genetic material that he had stored before he merged his soul with the strider. He tried his luck with Lady, and she made it _clear_ to him that she wasn't interested. So he moved on to courting Khar, but failed with her as well.

Garf was also on his way to visit Khar, and was already considering her a possible mate for himself. Seeing this reminded Lady of her own relationship with Tavi, so she encouraged Garf to confess his love to Khar. He decided to give Khar a gift: a mineral necklace. I guess it was because she had saved him from the probes that one time. He had to deal with them again to take the minerals, so Lady advised him to wait until morning, when most probes were inside the nexus, being put unter maintenance.

During the evening, Lady scared away the cyclone pilot and devoured one of three enemy ravens, scaring away the other two.

When morning came, Garf made the necklace and later gave it to Khar, confessing his love to her. She accepted to be his mate, but Khar's father, signifier Khor'kai, was against the terran-protoss romance going on.

Later on, a spectre – which is a ghost enhanced with Void gas – nuked the photon cannons behind the Temple of Young and stole a container of Void gas. Garf ended up being wrongfully accused of treason and taken to trial just because he happened to be the only visible ghost near the scene of the crime. Khor'kai even told Makatai that Khar is not allowed to defend Garf, since she had feelings for the ghost and might lie to defend him.

Raven was dragged to the trial as well, because Makatai remembered that the drone was the only terran to know where the Void gas had been hidden. It didn't help that Raven's former pilot could still activate his turret production and deployment from the enemy terrans' base and could spy through him. The prelate decided to sentence the ghost and raven to execution by annihilator cannon fire.

Lady in Black had seen the future. Makatai was really going to give the order. She saw how easily Garf died in one blast, and how Raven screamed as he crumbled from the attacks, leaving only pieces of darkened metal scattered over the snow after his destruction. She couldn't allow such injustice to happen, so she sought the highest point on Cylas. She found it on the top of the tallest mountain. There she raised her antennae and sent an S.O.S. message that she hoped would be received by any terran spaceship that happened to be near Cylas' star system.

To her surprise, the ones to receive the message were none other than the members of the Frigate crew. She was relieved to see that they were still alive and well.

After three marines called Reed, Tyrell, and Doyle – also known as Pops due to his old age – managed to get rid of Captain Betelgeuse through creative use of distraction and a grenade, Brian and Harold jokingly stole Tony's tank and convinced him to become their leader. Magellan and the SCVs had equipped the Frigate with a powerful front weapon and several cannons that were almost as strong. Tony threatened Makatai with the front weapon when peaceful negotiations to save the ghost and raven failed. But all was well when Makatai finally agreed to give them to the Frigate crew.

Garf and Raven were taken inside the Frigate, and inside Magellan's science vessel. While Garf kept reducing Raven's energy with EMP blasts, Magellan sent his robots inside Raven so that the drone could be completely freed from the enemy terrans' control. During that time, Garf communicated via text on a device about how he was sent by the United Earth Directorate to spy on the enemy terrans – known as Moebius Corps – and how he ended up mutilated by a strange bright light that killed his other ghost colleagues.

Lady was eavesdropping, and heard Tony explain what happened to the ghosts of the Frigate crew. She tried to avoid checking the terrans' minds to find out about Tavi's fate, but she could no longer run from the truth. She learned that Tavi had killed himself by drinking ten bottles of wine the day after witnessing the xel'naga leave. The news destroyed her mentally, making her question if she had any reason to help keep the universe alive when the person she cared about the most was no longer in it.

Just as Makatai and Tony were discussing and learning about each other, a fleet of cloaked banshee terran ships attacked. Due to no photon cannons being present in the village, the banshees could fly and attack without much resistance, and even managed to kill Khar's mother, signifier Aru. This greatly angered Khor'kai, who called Makatai out on his poor leadership skills.

Defeated and ashamed, Makatai chose to abandon his role as prelate and ran away, leaving the villagers to fend for themselves. Well, they weren't exactly alone. Tony ordered his crew to defend the village and the Frigate, hoping that Makatai would return soon.

Tony's crew had a cloaking anti-ground and anti-air aircraft called a wraith, which was no longer in use by the Terran Dominion. Its pilot, Jack, refused to switch to a viking that was meant to replace both the wraith and the goliath in turns. Robert stuck to his goliath as well. Harold became the leader of the workers and kept his old SCV. A valkyrie aircraft was also among the crew's fleet. The anti-air valkyries had been replaced among Dominion military by the more versatile liberator that could use the siege mode to attack ground targets, but Helga preferred to not switch either, so she joined the Frigate crew. Their recruited medics were given dropships that were modified into medivacs for healing ground troops from above. The crew also had four pilots of the new Crucio siege tanks, but Tony kept his old Arclite tank. The firebats had been replaced with hellions, and their leader, Damon, had a hellion that could transform into a hellbat robot that shielded itself with its arms while using the flamethrower above its head. Then there was that one diamondback, which was a vehicle that hovered and had a pair of railguns. Its driver had lost his arms in an incident involving a train, but that didn't stop him from piloting his vehicle through a special helmet made for him by Magellan.

The marauders, who wore armors similar to the new firebats but with two grenade launchers instead of flamethrowers, guarded the Frigate and a group of marines. Tyrell, who became one of the marauders, got in a fight with an enemy female terran spectre and pinned her down.

When Lady arrived near them, Tyrell was discussing giving his sister's phone number to Brian while the spectre – whose name was Lin – kept cussing at Tyrell. The xel'naga remembered she still had some jorium capsules with her, so she forced Lin to take four of them to snap her out of Amon's control.

Lin sided with the Frigate crew and hoped that they could rescue the rest of the brainwashed terrans, especially her best friend, banshee pilot Clara. Lin was the spectre who had nuked the photon cannons near the Temple of Young, and Clara was the one who had helped her escape with the Void gas container.

Lady searched for the prelate and saw Brian and another marine. They were watching Smiley mine with the other probes. The little robot still had the hat received from Hat Guy. This made the xel'naga smile inside and wish to hug Smiley, but she could not blow her cover. She had to act indifferent to him, even when he kept bringing her the hat and putting it at her feet. He followed her all the way to the Frigate. There, Lady gave Tony the jorium capsules to use them to save the brainwashed terrans, and then teleported away.

She found Makatai inside his favorite cave, sheltered from the blizzard that started outside. They had a discussion about what he could do to save the villagers, and even showed him why he should not ask his dark archons to permanently mind control the terrans. He was scared when he had his control over his body taken away from him by Lady in Black, and at some point she could not even read his mind anymore as she levitated him. She felt sorry that she had to make a point that way, but was glad that he understood the lesson after she had freed him. When they returned to the village, they found out that a few interesting things happened in their absence.

Connor, the diamondback pilot, managed to recruit Frank, the cyclone pilot. At first Frank was annoyed by Connor, but, after going through a drinking contest, they ended up getting along like a house on fire.

Khar's three siblings hatched early, and Khor'kai was glad that at least they remained after Aru's death. One of the hatchlings took a liking to Garf.

A viking joined the Frigate crew, hoping to hang out with more female terrans.

Garf and Raven managed to put their past behind themselves and work together to defend the Frigate and the village against a fleet of banshees. The pilot of a banshee they had downed turned out to be Lin's best friend, Clara. She died calling Lin a traitor.

Makatai executed some spectres upon arrival since Raven had no more energy and Garf refused to snipe them. Then the prelate resumed leadership and allied with Tony's crew, aiming to rescue the brainwashed terrans.

Khor'kai refused to follow Makatai's orders and decided to do himself justice by killing any enemy terrans he could find. This caused Moebius Corps to send spectres after him, and he was lucky that Garf managed to kill one to alert him. Killing for the first time reduced Garf to a whimpering mess, and Raven – who had been renamed Ray by Magellan – was amazed that such a peaceful ghost could have survived for so long.

Meanwhile, the Moebius Corps army arrived at the settlement. They were led by a protoss-zerg hybrid called Xilnu. He was the one who mutilated Garf and took control over the minds of those terrans. He had also fooled the Atum tribe into thinking that they had the upper hand when he allowed them to contain the terran base. Oh, he was a sneaky one!

He consumed the remaining banshees and teleported to destroy the Temple of Young. Garf and Ray chased him away – or so he made them think.

Khor'kai continued to kill the enemy terrans, and even crippled a few of their marines, whom were later put down and absorbed as energy by Lady. She returned to fight Xilnu, but five enemy ghosts tried to nuke the Temple of Young while the hybrid succeeded in destroying all of the Lorcadian protoss eggs in the lake. To make matters worse, Xilnu destroyed the Temple of Young, causing the death of one of Khar's brothers.

Garf was furious after seeing the baby protoss die and turn to dust in his own arms, but Lady could not let him risk his life against the hybrid. She took it upon herself to fight Xilnu, who had been greatly damaged by the suicidal attack of the two dark archons he was trying to absorb.

Lady prepared to put up a great fight, but fell for Xilnu's taunt and allowed fury to cloud her judgment. Because she attacked with a pair of green warp blades too close, the hybrid used his graviton prison attack on her, slowly crushing her in a psionic sphere. He called upon five ghosts to snipe her and weaken her so he could absorb her essence, which would guarantee her destruction. She was powerless, so she closed her eyes, curled her antennae around her body, and accepted her fate.

Makatai struck down the ghosts while appearing from the shadows, saving Lady from an early death. Garf too helped out by sniping the hybrid's head and EMP-ing him. Khar joined in and launched her crippling psionic storms at the hybrid, hoping that he could feel the pain she felt when losing her mother and newborn brother. Lin used her pyrokinesis to boil the hybrid's flesh while remembering Clara's death. Even Frank joined in and locked his cyclone onto Xilnu, punishing the hybrid for brainwashing his three marine friends, whom Frank had to wound in order to retrieve them with Connor's help.

The humiliation conga ended with Lin stunning Xilnu, Makatai stabbing him, and Tony blasting the hybrid, freeing Lady and allowing her to trap Xilnu in a graviton prison. Not wanting to listen to his blabbering about how Amon will build a much better universe, she summoned her pair of fiery warp blades and sliced the hybrid while in mid air. Once they landed, she assured him that he and his master will be freed from suffering. With one swift swing of a fiery scythe she had summoned, she put an end to Xilnu's life. After consuming the hybrid's body, the xel'naga had enough energy stored to be able to metamorphose into her true form and fly away.

The Frigate crew captured the remaining brainwashed terran marines and managed to snap some of them back to their senses, but they would need to gather more jorium for those who could still be saved. The ones who were too far gone had to be shot, because death is preferable to being locked inside one's mind forever.

In the evening, Makatai, alongside some members of the Atum tribe, spent some time together with the Frigate crew in the cafeteria-bar, celebrating. Meanwhile, the xel'naga went into an area of the forest where no one could see her, and transformed into the winged, horned, tentacled being that her ascension had made her to be. She spread her wings, absorbed all the void gas on Cylas, and flew away as the protoss and terrans watched her from below until she left the planet's atmosphere.

In her tentacles, she grasped the wreath for the fallen that she had made for Tavi. She arrived at the dead ghost's grave and placed the wreath around it before flying away. Where did she fly off to? Well, legend says the xel'naga could be anywhere, disguised as any creature of this universe, waiting for Duran to make his next move."

The storyteller brought his snout near the green flame and blew air at it through his nostrils, extinguishing it. A long, earthy yellow horn curved toward his back resided just above his nose, followed by a very short horn behind it. He had four green eyes, two small horns pointing toward his back and acting as his ears, and his head was reptilian, just like the rest of his body, which seemed more suited for quadrupedal walking. His thick, long tail helped him maintain balance and sit properly. The moonlight reflected off his smooth, black scales. "Did you enjoy the tale?" he asked.

Five pale green, scaly, bipedal, velociraptor-like creatures with four green eyes and a pair of long, finned ears stared at him. Their mouths were full of fangs, but two of the teeth from the front of their lower jaws were larger than the rest. The creatures' arms were muscular, ending in three long, sharp claws. Their long legs' feet had somewhat shorter claws. Their tails were long and thin. A row of spikes decorated the spine of each beast, and a row of four spikes went down the dewlap of the creature's neck. After a few moments of silence, the creatures stared at each other, letting out short, chirping noises, and then burrowed into the soil, disappearing from sight in mere seconds.

The storyteller sighed. "Good night, little ones."

A voice deeper than his came from behind him. "Big Horn! You tell stories to zerglings again?"

Big Horn turned around to see another reptilian quadruped.

The creature was dark green, had six green eyes, a pointy chin, a mouth full of sharp teeth, and three rows of spikes going down from the back of its head all the way to the thorny bulb at the end of its tail. Its feet all had four long claws, and its front legs were more muscular than its hind ones, each with a long spike at the elbow. Its sternum stuck out from its chest, almost touching the ground.

"Having trouble sleeping, Mtark?" Big Horn asked.

"Pack needs order!" Mtark said. "It risks going extinct. You not mate, lay no eggs. Higher strains reproduce too slow. Lower strains reproduce too fast. Most of pack is zerglings!"

Many zerglings ran about, flapping their insect wings energetically, in spite of the late hour. The few that did not have wings either slept curled in small holes in the soil or were burrowed.

"Well, there is safety in numbers," Big Horn said.

The spikes and pointy areas on on Mtark glowed bright orange as he said, "Numbers of weak strain make pack weak! Look at primalisks! Once proud, strong, prosperous strain, now reduced to ten creatures!"

The gray primalisks with red accents were as big as terran tanks and had eight red eyes. Each creature had four horns coming from the back of its head and curling around the creature's long, vertically flattened tail, whose end split into four short tips. Six other horns of the head curved toward the primalisk's mouth full of many fangs. From the back of its head also stretched a pair of three appendages tied together by a membrane, each ending in a single claw. The primalisk was quadrupedal, each of its legs ending in three claws with webbing between them. There were only two young primalisks among their members.

"Mutalisks are clumsy, break own eggs often," Mtark said, pointing with his front right foot's claw at the green draconic beasts with four orange, black, and red pigmented wings and long tails with stingers as they rested in the tree tops. "Numbers of strain down to twenty one. And hosts spawn more locusts than offspring!"

The hosts' mushroom-shaped backs were covered in small, winged creatures that looked like the hosts, having the crescent lower arms but lacking the mushroom structure and having an extra pair of legs to support their bloated abdomens. Both creature types had fanged mandibles on the sides of their mouths and had two green eyes.

"Even these …" Mtark squinted as he looked at the creatures he wanted to mention. "What are they? Why they have so many colors? They attract nectar eaters all day."

The creatures he was talking about looked like red hydralisks with frills of feathers going from their snouts to their backs. The center of the frill was made of yellow feathers, followed by red ones on each side, and then ending the fan with green ones on the edges. Much like the hydralisks of those times, they only had a pair of arms and stood on their long, thorny tails since they lacked legs. Unlike them, they only had one scythe claw at the end of each arm.

"I am not sure what they are," Big Horn said. "Their strain turned into that after indulging in too many artosilopes and some small, feathered creatures."

Mtark stomped the ground with his right foreleg's foot. "Forget name! Problem is: none breed! Pack is laughingstock on Zerus!"

"Patience, Mtark. I shall deal with the problems of each strain tomorrow."

"You better! Or else pack goes the way of the zokzok!" Having said that, Mtark turned off his orange glow, climbed atop the tallest rock nearby, and curled himself up while the three moons shone their light over him.

"Sweet dreams!" Big Horn said to him before lying over a pile of leaves and preparing to sleep.

* * *

**To be continued.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Zerg**

The golden sun shone over the lush vegetation of Zerus' Sundered Valley, awakening the primal zerg packs and other creatures that inhabited the area.

Big Horn walked among the many scurrying zerglings and went past three featherheaded zerg that were bowing and displaying their frills in courtship to a female of theirs. In his mouth, Big Horn carried a big, curved leaf that held water.

The mutalisks flew around, screeching like eagles as they flapped their colorful wings. One of the primalisks was digging a hole in the ground. The hosts spawned a new swarm of locusts, which hunted and brought meat back to them. Then the locusts expired.

Still holding the water-filled leaf in his mouth, Big Horn stopped in front of the skeletal remains of some long-dead creatures. On each skeleton there was a pile of green, pulsating flesh. One such pile was getting a bit too dry, so he quickly poured the water onto it, saying, "No, no, no! Don't dry out on me!" But the flesh just sizzled and stopped moving for good. Big Horn frowned and then watered the remaining two piles, which seemed very much alive.

Behind him, a winged zergling was sniffing the face of another such zergling before attempting to climb onto the back of the creature. Mtark happened to be walking toward them, and when he got near, he said, "Get out of my way!" smacking them hard with his large, clawed paw. The pair of zerglings squeaked as they were sent rolling.

Big Horn turned around and saw Mtark, who glared at him.

"Wasting time again with those corpses?"

"Oh, time is not wasted, Mtark. These bone colonies are–"

"Artosilope bones are useless! Go solve pack problem! Those … feathered creatures …"

"Since they keep getting mistaken for flowers by the nectar eaters, I think we should call them floralisks," Big Horn said.

"I do not care!" Mtark said while stomping the ground with his right front foot. "They are arguing! It is disrupting pack order!"

Big Horn took one last look at the bone colonies, then went to check on the floralisks. He found one of the males trying to constrict the other with his spiky tail, while another was biting them both. The female stared at them, confused. After approaching them, Big Horn asked, "What is going on here?"

All three males stopped fighting and lined up as if saluting him, and growled simultaneously. Black insects flew toward their mouths, but the floralisks ate them all.

"Why fight when you could show off your frills to her?" Big Horn asked.

The floralisk males rolled their eyes and growled again.

"She can't make up her mind, huh? Well, here's my suggestion: you three race each other, and the winner gets the female. Sounds good?"

The floralisk males looked at each other, then back at Big Horn. "Yaaaa!" they all said.

Big Horn drew a horizontal line in front of the female floralisk, then pointed at the males. "You three, come with me!"

The floralisk males followed him all the way to a lava pit, then awaited further orders.

After drawing another horizontal line, this time in front of the three males, Big Horn said, "When I give the order, you go from here to where the female is standing."

The floralisks arched their backs and prepared to spring.

"Go!"

The three males slithered as fast as they could on their tails, avoiding obstacles such as rocks and tiny plants. In the end, one of the three arrived first, and the female accepted him as her new mate – at least until the next week's breeding season.

"Well, that's solved," Big Horn said, smiling. He turned to leave, but saw two mutalisks laying eggs in a tree. He remembered about their problem with the accidental egg cracking, so he went to investigate.

One of the mutalisks curled her tail around her clutch and nuzzled the eggs. The other tried to do the same with her own clutch, but her stinger poked one of its five eggs and cracked it. The liquid contents oozed from the crack, and the mother mutalisk cried out like a wounded eagle.

Big Horn climbed atop the tree and looked at her nest. "Now here's the problem: you have to stop wrapping your clutches with your tails. I know you want to protect them, but you're doing more damage than any predator would! You can fly and shoot your spikes at anything that tries to climb your trees. That's all you need to defend your eggs."

The mutalisks unwrapped their tails and freed the clutches.

"That goes for the rest of you too!" Big Horn said, looking at the other mutalisks – some of whom were already flirting by showing off their wings.

That problem was solved too. Now it was time to check on the primalisks. Only one female laid eggs. She had three, and stared at them while letting out what Big Horn could tell were whimpers.

"They're nonviable?" Big Horn asked.

The female primalisk bowed her head and continued to whine.

"It keeps happening, huh? I know that feeling, sister," Big Horn said as he tried to put his right arm over the primalisk's back to comfort her.

The primalisk backed away and hissed at him, then looked around for an escape route while glancing back at him from time to time.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Big Horn said. He sighed and walked away, allowing the primalisk to calm down.

* * *

It was full of locusts in the hosts' nesting area when he got there. Not a single host hatchling in sight.

"Listen up, hosts!" Big Horn said. "I know you are fond of the locusts – I mean, they are cute and all – but we need more hosts. Save your energy and incubate some of your own eggs for a change!"

Fifteen of the sixteen hosts burrowed into the soil while leaving their backs exposed so they could incubate eggs. The remaining one spawned two locusts.

Big Horn pointed at that host. "No more locusts!"

The host burrowed too and popped four eggs into its incubation slots.

Smiling, Big Horn went on his way, glad that he solved that problem too.

The zerglings were laying eggs everywhere, and there were a few new hatchlings skipping around. By the end of the day, the zergling population would hit 130.

* * *

A yellow creature the size of a primalisk approached the pack's nesting grounds. Its head was very similar to a primal zergling's, except with a third pair of eyes. The creature's arms were being used as a front pair of legs, and its tail tip had three spikes. More spikes could be seen on the sides of the tail.

Smaller versions of the yellow creature followed it. They were all green and only had four eyes.

The zerglings of Big Horn's pack intercepted the intruders at the entrance to their valley, and a fight broke out.

The yellow creature charged in, stopped at the entrance, and let out a thunderous roar. In response, Big Horn rushed in, halted near the entrance, and roared back. The two giant zerg began to fight, but Big Horn was much stronger, knocking the intruder to the ground with one stab of his horn.

"As the victor, I ask you to take your pack and leave this place," Big Horn said, giving the loser a stern look.

The creature got back on its feet and spoke in a hissed female voice. "My pack not leaving. We fight until only winner is alive."

The zerglings managed to chase the smaller enemies away, but the defeated pack leader continued to stand before Big Horn.

"Fight me!" the yellow creature said, showing her teeth.

Big Horn smacked her again, knocking her upside-down on the ground. "Do I have to drag you out?"

Mtark charged in, the sharper areas of his body glowing bright orange. He stopped next to Big Horn and the enemy. "Kill her! Ravasaur essence must be assimilated!"

The ravasaur got back on her feet and glared daggers at Big Horn and Mtark.

Ten zerglings with wings surrounded them, watching and awaiting orders.

"I'd rather recruit her or let her go, Mtark. Her pack is much weaker than ours. We don't need their essence."

Seeing that Big Horn would not deliver the final blow, Mtark jumped at the ravasaur's throat and sunk his teeth into it, killing her. After tearing a piece of flesh from the corpse and swallowing it whole, he said, "Zerg law. Survival of fittest. Eliminate pack enemies or I overthrow you." He continued to eat from the corpse, and grew in size a bit while his glow faded away.

The ten zerglings joined in and feasted on the corpse as well. They morphed into ravasaurs, and their wings turned into long spikes.

Big Horn had a sorrowful look on his face as he watched the deceased stubborn pack leader's remains get torn apart until there were only bones left. Zerus was a dangerous place. He knew that. But he wished he could change how things worked there. He saw cooperation as a more rewarding alternative to the "no allegiance but to self" way of life. Other packs would eat their own worker drones, and the underlings would challenge each other and even take on their pack leader, replacing him or her and leading the pack into a new direction – often worse than the previous one. His pack was kept relatively civilized for two months thus far, and none of the zerg in it seemed to have any beef with him. Well, none except for Mtark, who was only subservient due to fearing Big Horn. But for how long?

* * *

That afternoon, Big Horn sat and watched his five favorite little zerglings play. They were chasing each other and jumping around, chittering.

Dark clouds were covering the sky – a sign that rain was coming soon to the valley. The primal zerg had adapted to endure both times of drought and times of floods, so the rain would be just a shower for them. The plants were surely looking forward to it, as they would bloom in vibrant colors and spread their aromatic smells.

Mtark returned to the valley, this time followed by a zerg similar to him in shape, minus the spiky tail. He walked up to Big Horn and said, "This is my mate. Her name Nash. She joins pack."

"I join hoping this pack strong," Nash said. "If pack goes weak, Mtark and I leave, take who want to come with us, and form new pack. Better, stronger." She turned around and licked Mtark on the neck.

"Welcome to our pack," Big Horn told her. "We try to get along with each other here. No one challenges anyone; we work together. Please do not cause any trouble, or else I will take action. And you will not like it when I take action against backstabbers." His four eyes glowed bright green after saying the last phrase.

Nash backed away and bowed her head, sensing that there was a lot of power emanating from Big Horn.

Mtark nudged her, then said to Big Horn, "Nash and I will go now. We will increase pack numbers and strength. Unlike you. You still not found mate."

"I had a mate ..." Big Horn said, frowning as he looked at the ground.

"Forget old mate. Find new one. Pack needs fresh blood." With that, Mtark went with Nash into an area covered by tall, bushy ferns. A few seconds later, all that could be heard from there were low grumbles and the sounds of shaking vegetation.

Big Horn turned around and slowly walked away, head hanging low and eyes half closed.

* * *

The yellow sun was at the start of its setting, coloring the sky a rusty orange. Big Horn went to check on the bone colonies. He didn't need to bring them water again, because he could feel droplets hit his skin. The rain would do the work for him.

His five favorite zerglings walked past him, chittering to each other. They seemed to enjoy the rain, as they rolled in every puddle they could find in their path.

Big Horn gazed at them with lots of joy. But that moment was short-lived, because he sensed something that made him turn and stare at the sunset with a serious expression on his face. Not even the golden raindrops could calm him.

Meanwhile, the mutalisk eggs hatched, and the strain ended up having thirty members with the new additions. The floralisks gained three newly hatched members. There were no viable eggs produced by the primalisks, so their numbers stayed the same. After the zergling eggs hatched, they had a total of 120 members – the other ten who had become ravasaurs produced five eggs that had not hatched yet.

Big Horn's favorite five zerglings continued to play in a large puddle, leaping at each other like frogs. They remained still when they saw the pack leader approach them.

"You little ones should go to sleep early, because tomorrow we will all need to be as well-rested as possible. Something really nasty is coming our way."

The zerglings stared at him, and then at each other. Then they climbed a tree and huddled together at its crown's center.

Big Horn lay on his soaked leaf bed. He smiled at them and said, "Sweet dreams!"

* * *

**To be continued.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: F(l)ight**

The sunrise graced the Sundered Valley with its light again, awakening the inhabitants there.

All of the adult mutalisks flew out of the trees, and their offspring took off for the first time, following them. The hosts' eggs hatched, adding thirty six new members to their strain. The thirteen floralisks stood with their mouths open, waiting for insects to fall in for breakfast. The zerglings, the ravasaurs, and the primalisks went out to hunt.

Big Horn stretched out and left his leaf bed – which had wilted overnight. His first concern was to check on the bone colonies. Once he arrived at their place, he gasped. The remaining two piles of flesh had dried up just like the other one. He stood there before them, frowning as he slowly lowered his head.

* * *

Nash guarded a nest of four turquoise eggs. The nest was made of branches and leaves, on the ground. She wouldn't let even an insect close to her clutch. The only other zerg allowed to approach was Mtark, who just happened to return from his hunting time.

Mtark had scratch marks on his left shoulder. They were healing fast, but they must have been very deep wounds before he got there.

Big Horn saw him and started the interrogation. "What happened to you?"

"Gah! There was stupid enemy pack leader!" Mtark said, shaking his head. "He lurks in bushes. Runs from challenge. I catch. I bite, eat one of his four arms. Taste terrible. I bite off another arm, throw it away. He tries to poke my eye with tail spike, scratches, slips out of my grip, disappears in ground. Coward!"

"I wouldn't call him a coward," Big Horn said. "That pack leader sounds wise. He didn't want to pick a fight with a zerg he knew was stronger than him. He got the information he needed about you, and he survived to make use of it later."

Mtark growled while showing his teeth. "He stands in my path again, he loses head!"

Big Horn chuckled. "I'd be very careful around that zerg, Mtark. He may not be as powerful as you, but being cunning often pays off in a fight against a stronger opponent."

Mtark hissed dismissively and went to talk with Nash.

* * *

It was noon when all of the pack's members returned from hunting. The hosts' locusts came last, bringing chunks of meat to their spawners before expiring and melting away.

Big Horn stared at the sky, in the same direction where the sun had been during the last sunset. He could hear the pack's mutalisks screech in panic. That was the sign he was waiting for. Turning around, he roared to gain the attention of the rest of his pack.

Mtark and Nash arrived first, followed by the other zerg.

"You feel it too, don't you?" Big Horn asked them.

Mtark looked around, sniffing the air. "What is happening? Why my scales stand on end?"

The mutalisks all hid in the crowns of trees in the valley, ceasing their screeching. The ground zerg roared and hissed, becoming more and more anxious.

Out of nowhere, red lights formed in the sky. With the sounds of explosions, the lights faded away, being replaced with spaceships made of black metal decorated with red glowing gems. The largest of the ships had a shielded cylindrical center with three rotating wing extensions evenly distributed around its body. Two of the extensions had two red disc beacons and the third extension had only one such beacon. It was definitely a mothership.

"Things are about to get ugly," Big Horn said.

Mtark growled at the spaceships and arched his back to seem larger than he really was.

Big Horn looked at him. "They're protoss. They do not understand zerg body language."

"When I'll be done with them, it will be last thing they understand," Mtark said.

Hovering around the giant mothership there were thirty much smaller spaceships that looked very similar to void rays, and nine that looked like bulky carriers a bit over half the size of the mothership. From all of the spaceships, protoss with red glowing eyes and black armors with red crystals were being beamed down.

"So, these are the protoss you talk about," Mtark said. "I sense their powerful essence."

"That essence cannot be taken by the zerg; trust me, the Swarm tried," Big Horn told him. Then he swiftly stared at the mothership the moment he sensed an even higher psionic emanation than all of the protoss there combined could emit.

Out of the giant ship, a terran man with white, slicked back hair, soul patch beard, and mustache was beamed down. He wore a caped white uniform and landed gently with his boots on the ground, a very bored expression showing on his face as his brown eyes stared at Big Horn.

The pack leader smiled at him. "Ah, Doctor Narud! What brings you to this distant part of the galaxy?"

"Spare me the fake hospitality, ascended snot!" the old man said. He pointed at Big Horn. "You know why I'm here. Were you preparing an ambush for me?"

The pack leader's four eyes became shifty. "An ambush?" He put his right front foot to his head while shaking the left front foot in the air. "No! Perish the thought!"

The mutalisks' heads peeked out from the tree crowns.

Narud put his hands behind his back. "I need to know where you stand in all of this. You can get out of my way, go against me, or join me. I advise you to think this through. You've taken the form of various creatures. You've seen what suffering they go through. Is that not enough to convince you that the Cycle is cruel?"

"I stand here, firmly, like a deeply rooted tree," Big Horn said while tapping the ground with his right front foot. "Now, about taking forms … Whose identity did you steal this time, Duran?"

"Oh, he was just a rock collector. No one misses him. Just like nobody will miss you once I'll eliminate you and your pack of leftovers!"

"You're exaggerating about the Cycle, Duran. Life isn't that bad. Sure, there is a lot of suffering, because most of this universe's creatures evolved through competition; but there are some that show compassion. They strive for peace and unity. Besides, whoever doesn't like life can always just make the choice to leave it."

Duran smirked at him. "Is that so?" His eyes' irises gained a red glow, then his body changed shape and color. He became a human in a red skinsuit with a goggled mask that had a breathing filter. Even his voice changed to sound familiar to Big Horn. He walked up to the bone colonies, stared at them for a bit, then looked back at the pack leader. "What experiments were you working on here? You weren't trying to find a way to bring me back to life, were you, Hat?" His mask morphed into the face of a man with long, curly, blond hair, blue eyes, and a chin covered in stubble. He sported a large grin.

Big Horn frowned and lowered his head. "Duran, you … vile creature! Stop wearing his appearance! Have some respect for the deceased!"

Still using the familiar voice, Duran said, "Respect? Heheh. This pitiful creature was _very_ determined to escape the cruelty of life, and you were trying to drag it back to suffer some more, just because you miss it. You don't even respect its choice. Good thing humans are some of those creatures that only leave a bunch of bones behind after being dead for a while."

Big Horn stared at the ground, scowling while his front claws grasped the soil.

Meanwhile, Duran morphed into his pre-ascension form, having a row of four horns on the center of his head, and eight other horns split evenly on the sides of it, curved inwards. A pair of bony plates extended from the sides of the back of his head, right from under the rows of horns. He had no mouth or nose, just two red eyes and a pair of mustache-like growths that reached all the way to his chest. His four long arms each had two long, red glowing claws between two smaller claws. The lower pair of arms was slightly smaller. His feet had three long claws, and his back ended in a short tail. His skin was black as coal.

The Tal'darim looked at him in awe. Some even bowed to him.

He used his real voice, which sounded echoed and slightly deep. "The xel'naga changed me from this beautiful form to something that will become just like them, a writhing mass of tentacles with bulks of fat! They did not respect my wish to remain myself! I wish I had died as what I was. In fact, it would have been better if I were never born. Even those eggs ..." He pointed at the nest belonging to Mtark and Nash.

"Duran, no!" Big Horn said, scowling at him. "Leave the eggs out of this!"

"The poor creatures forming inside them …" Duran said, preparing an orb of red light in his top right hand. "They shouldn't be brought into this unforgiving world."

Mtark roared and jumped in front of the nest, shielding the eggs with his body. He was joined by Nash.

Big Horn rushed to put himself between the two zerg and the red beam that Duran fired. He took and endured the blast, his scales regrowing in the burnt areas on his back. Turning around to face Duran again, he said, "You keep stooping lower and lower."

Duran smirked through his eyes. "And I'll go to whatever depth needed in order to bring Amon's plan to completion!"

"You want to make Amon real proud of you, huh?" Big Horn asked. "Look, I understand that you see him as your father figure. I know what you've been through before your ascension, but you've heard him when he said he does not consider his creations his offspring."

Duran jumped at him with all of his strength, flipped him on his back, and pinned him to the ground, repeatedly punching the pack leader's face with all four of his clawed fists. "You know _nothing_ about me! You don't know what it's like ... to be thrown … by your own mother … into the trash! You don't know what it's like … to roam the junkyard … in search of food … when being only a few days old! Your society took care … of. Each. And. Every. One. Of. Its. Hatchlings!"

Big Horn's favorite five zerglings burst from underneath the ground, revealing that they had grown their wings. They jumped at Duran and bit him, getting him away from their pack leader.

"Get off me, you worthless creatures!" Duran said. He grabbed four of the zerglings with his hands, and stepped hard on the fifth. Merely bringing his claws together, he sliced the remaining four creatures and let their remains drop to the ground.

"No! Not the zerglings!" Big Horn yelled. He stomped the ground with his right front foot and let out a loud roar, exposing his sharp teeth.

His pack reacted by charging at Duran, but the protoss kept them away from him.

"Your ancient, outdated primal zerg are no match for my Tal'darim," Duran said. "I have brought ascendants, blood hunters, slayers, vanguards, and even wrathwalkers to handle your ground forces while the destroyers and skylords deal with your pathetic mutalisks."

The ascendants looked like signifiers with only armor and no cloths. Their arm armors had red flames emitting from their elbows. Their faces were covered by helmets with red visors. Just like the signifiers, they had an inward curved spike with a colored inner side protruding from each pauldron. Some of the ascendants released red orbs of light from their hands to quickly kill ten zerglings and send the rest of them into retreat.

The vanguards, which looked like the annihilators of the Atum tribe sans the color scheme, could fire scattered shots of red plasma at the heavily armored primalisks, eliminating one in the process.

The slayers were the stalker variant of the Tal'darim. They blinked around and tricked the zerglings into chasing them, only to gun them down with their particle disruptors. If any zergling managed to land a claw on them, the slayers' phasing armors activated, negating the damage and allowing them to blink away safely to shoot again.

Even though the Tal'darim army only had four wrathwalkers, the colossal robots with four spider legs and two-horned, elongated heads fired powerful blasts of plasma at the primalisks, bringing down three of the big zerg with ease.

Twenty blood hunters – who looked like dark templar wielding double scythes and using zerg jawbones to protect their chins – turned invisible and went around the battlefield, assassinating tens of zerglings and two hosts. Two blood hunters saw the floralisks and laughed while pointing at the unusually colorful zerg.

Unfortunately for the blood hunters, the floralisks were capable of sensing concealed creatures. Upon noticing that they were being ridiculed, three floralisks spat a honeylike substance onto the two protoss.

"What is this thing?" one of the two blood hunters asked. "Why is it so sticky and sweet smelling?"

A swarm of small, flying insects covered them, lured in by the sweet scent. Then eleven zerglings piled up on top of the two protoss, chewing them to death.

The mutalisks chased the interceptors of the skylords and fired their tail spikes at them, unaware of what was producing the flying machinery. Three mutalisks died as the interceptors swarmed in on them.

Speaking of swarming, the locusts of the hosts were chasing away the ascendants and spitting acid at them, but some of the blood hunters mowed the locusts down before they could do any further damage.

The destroyers – which were altered void rays stolen from the Nerazim – fired their red beams at two ravasaurs that spat acid at them. The beams bounced off, connecting to several of the zerglings nearby. All of the zerg caught in the beams died.

"You keep saying you do not want these creatures to suffer," Big Horn said while glaring at Duran, "and yet you too cause them suffering. This has to end, and I will make sure it will." His eyes started to glow bright green.

"They would not suffer as much if they would just lie down and accept death for the rescue it really is!" Duran told him.

Mtark jumped at a wrathwalker, causing it to collapse and become unable to defend itself or get back on its legs. He destroyed the robot's cameras and cannons with his sharp claws, then went for the other three wrathwalkers while dodging their big red blasts. After tricking them to align, he jumped at the front one and pushed it into the others, causing a domino effect. In the end, all three of them were on the ground, incapacitated and destroyed by his clawing.

Big Horn's entire body glowed bright green. "The creatures of this universe have free will, and they choose to live!" He grew twice in size, becoming one head taller than Duran. He turned into the fiery shape with wings, multiple large tentacles on the chest, abdomen and tail, and a horned head with tentacled snout. His four eyes glowed white, but when his body turned black and fleshy, they regained their green glow.

"Well, would you look at that?" Duran said, putting his hands on his hips. "The baby xel'naga managed to complete a Void transformation for the first time. Too bad it takes so much energy when you're not used to it!" He raised his top right hand and fired a red beam at the other xel'naga.

Big Horn wrapped himself in his fleshy wings, blocking the attack before launching one of his own. His green pulse of light pushed Duran's beam back.

Duran ended up blown away by Big Horn's attack, and grabbed onto one of the mothership's wings so he could remain anchored. Once the attack ended, he descended back to the ground and gave a nasty stare to the other xel'naga. "Now that was pathetic. You know you are dealing with a xel'naga much older and more experienced than you. What do you hope to achieve? You've pretty much spent half of your energy so far, and I'm almost fully charged. Give up already! You're just embarrassing yourself at this point."

Big Horn panted while staring into Duran's eyes. "I … have a reason to fight."

The skylords ordered their interceptors to explode, killing off ten of the remaining mutalisks. All of the primalisks had been slain by the vanguards, who moved on to helping the destroyers kill the zerglings.

Nash died protecting the eggs she had with Mtark. The clutch ended up destroyed too. Mtark saw the shimmers around his nest, so he brought two floralisks and told them, "Spit at hidden enemy!"

The floralisks spat their goo, revealing the two blood hunters that had slain Mtark's partner. Mtark caught one of the blood hunters in his mouth, chomping him in half. Then he clawed the other one to shreds.

A green aura shone around Big Horn's body. "I look at how many deaths you've caused."

The mothership beamed down a hybrid that looked like a mix between a gray-skinned protoss and a zerg hydralisk, with its pulsating brain showing through the top of its crested head. Its eyes glowed bright blue, and four similar glowing tendrils waved on its back. On the left and right side of its body, three extensions ending in claws spread out.

A second hybrid was beamed down. It was dark purple, and looked more like a hydralisk than a protoss, having a mouth full of multiple rows of sharp teeth and guarded by a pair of fanged mandibles. The creature's eyes glowed bright blue, and from each of them a glowing vein extended toward the back of the hybrid's crested head, going all the way to the horns that extended from each side of the crest. Its shoulders had glowing blue stripes. It had four long arms, just like Duran's, but with three spikes on each elbow. Each of its hands ended in four fingers – the middle two having long claws with thin blue stripes going across them. From the back of the creature's head, multiple hairlike tendrils were hanging between four tentacles coming from the hybrid's back. The hybrid's tail wagged slowly.

The two hybrid teamed up, pinned Mtark to the ground, and strangled him to death, in spite of his thrashing, clawing, and biting.

Big Horn continued to charge up his attack. "I look at these creatures you've created for Amon … These hybrid ... One of them looks almost like you. Don't think that you and Amon are perfect. There will always be strife among the living."

Sensing the power of the attack that Big Horn was preparing, Duran transformed into his Void form, his third pair of eyes looking almost fully formed. He hated having such stubby arms, but if that was the form that could protect him from the large amount of Void energies that were about to strike him, it was better than nothing.

Most of the pack's zerg had been killed, except for ten zerglings, a ravasaur, four mutalisks, four hosts, and three floralisks. The protoss took heavy losses of their ground units too, having lost all of their vanguards, all but ten ascendants, and all but four blood hunters. They still had seven skylords that kept firing their cannons at the remaining ground zerg while their interceptors chased the mutalisks around. The destroyer ships lay in ruins on the ground, covered in floralisk goo and heaps of black insects. The mothership was charging up its thermal lance weapon to fire it at the zerg. The two hybrid were preparing to attack again, and they would surely wipe out the entire zerg pack, should the Tal'darim fail to do so first.

"But strife makes us appreciate the times of peace. Death is a given. But life is a one time experience, and that is what makes it all the more valuable." With that, Big Horn unleashed a burst of bright green light that swept the entire valley like a hurricane.

When the light dissipated, Duran uncurled his tentacles and fired a red beam of light from his chest straight at the exhausted Big Horn. "Such stupidity ... You have less than a quarter of your energy left. What are you going to do now?"

Big Horn could not avoid the attack. His right wing and the center of his chest were beginning to bleed green glowing blood due to the continuous burning he was subjected to. He encased himself in a spherical cocoon of light and transformed into his fiery form. Bursting from the sphere and spreading his wings out, he took to the sky, escaping the beam.

"Are you really this stupid?" Duran asked. "Another energy-heavy transformation?! I don't get it. It's like digging your own grave. Hey! Where are you going, coward?"

The green xel'naga continued to fly past the planet's atmosphere. He said, "There is only so much I can do in a fight against you. But when it comes to ruining your plans, I have already succeeded."

Duran's eyes widened. "What?!" He looked behind himself and saw a gargantuan zerg leviathan accompanied by hundreds of overlords in the sky. He scowled. "Kerrigan ..."

"Good luck fighting the Swarm when you have no army!" were the green xel'naga's last words to him.

Duran looked around. Corpses, burnt vegetation, and wreckage were the only things left in the valley. He clenched his top-right fist and shook it at the green star in the sky. "To oblivion with you, sly snot with no name! It won't be long until you're bled dry! You will be erased from existence the moment you'll be at void's door! Amon will have no mercy on you!"

* * *

The green xel'naga continued his flight through the Milky Way galaxy, his energy bleeding through his wounds. He had very little power left, and he wondered if it was worth using it to attempt to heal himself. The chances weren't in his favor; he could die from exhaustion anyway during the healing process. An idea popped into his mind. He decided to use his remaining energy to peer approximately three years into the future and see if his actions really made a difference.

* * *

His thoughts first led him to a vision of Smiley. The little probe sat in a large wicker basket, on a purple blanket, with a mineral shard whose role was similar to that of a chew toy. The sedge hat still stood on top of the probe's head. Smiley seemed to be falling asleep, judging by his half-flipped lenses. The room he was in was dimly lit.

Next to Smiley's basket, Tony sat in a purple, velvety armchair while holding a fone in his left hand. He used his right hand's index finger to scroll through some text on the device. "On a sunny day, the former caterpillar broke free from its cocoon and appeared as a beautiful blue butterfly. It flew to the sky, excited to explore places it had never seen before. The end." He gently put the fone on a wooden table next to his armchair and got up, stretching out and yawning. After petting the head of the supposedly sleeping probe, he went to his bedroom to sleep as well.

Tony's house was humble in size compared to the ones from the rest of the neighborhood, but it had some large metal letters on its front lawn. They formed the text "City Hall". From what the xel'naga could gather, it was all Brian's idea to honor the leader's home with that title. It was also Brian's idea to call their colony Drunken Space Sailors. The name stuck, in spite of Tony's repeated protests to change it.

Speaking of Brian, the next day, the marine was at a restaurant, dating a woman who had black, curly hair and dark skin. Turns out marauder Tyrell kept his word about giving him his sister's number after all.

The restaurant they were in was run by Pops, the retired marine who temporarily served as an SCV pilot and settled to replace the deceased Leroy as waiter. Pops and a few other former SCV pilots called the place they worked in the Laburant, where the specialty was the labburger – lab-grown beef burger. They also served various vegetables and fruit from other planets, but when it came to meat, it was easier to just grow it from cells of any edible creature in laboratories with the help of Magellan.

Magellan was put in charge not only of the cooking for the Laburant, but of the security of the little beach town Tony's colony created on their new planet.

Ray the raven was still around to assist him. His fins had been modified to be sturdier, and his plating was replaced to deal with high pressure. He was sent to dive into the sea to search for a certain type of seashell. He found it and brought it to Magellan, who beamed it into his science vessel.

"Thank you, Ray! This is a fascinating shell! Must have belonged to a great specimen."

"All in the day's work, my friend," Ray said, flying around the science vessel.

In that same area, Tyrell and his fiancée, spectre Lin, surfed over the ocean's waves, dressed in blue and white striped swimsuits, having not a care in the world.

Not far from the beach, another couple lived in a large wooden home. Wraith pilot Jack was making tea for his wife, valkyrie pilot Helga, who was pregnant in the seventh month. They seemed to be happy.

Balder, the viking pilot recruited from Cylas, was training the future generation of viking pilots for the colony. "Transform!" he said as he turned his fighter ship into an assault walker that dropped to the ground. His trainees followed suit and dropped their ships to the ground in assault mode too. Balder smiled at them. "Nice job! No one broke a limb this time."

Robert, the colony's goliath pilot who had an artificial voice box, opened a casino and invited his SCV pilot friends over for card games almost every night. Tony wasn't too happy about having a casino around, but he let it slide.

At the bottom of a mountain near the beach, Frank the cyclone pilot and Connor the diamondback pilot were having a barbecue in the grassy yard of their house. Connor had a pair of silver cybernetic arms that were made for him by Magellan.

Frank's three marine friends sat as guests at a table near the two pilots, waiting to be served. A canine of some kind, with two black horns on its head and four spikes on its back, kept putting its front paws on the table to see if there was anything on the plates. This made one of the marines say, "Hey, your lyote's getting pretty hungry. I hope he won't try to eat us."

"Nah, don't worry," Connor said, seasoning some beef. "Fido's well-trained. Also, he prefers cooked meat."

"Now if only he could train Fido to stop howling at night ..." Frank said, tending to the food on the grill.

* * *

The next people the xel'naga decided to check on were the ghosts of the Shroud. They ventured outside of their underground bunker from time to time, and felt at ease ever since the Terran Dominion came under the leadership of the former emperor's son, Valerian Mengsk. But whenever they returned home, they still got the chills when looking at that abandoned room where everything was white. Some things never change.

* * *

It was time to check on the Atum tribe. The xel'naga found out that Makatai became a beloved leader and acquired three new advisers: Khor'kai, Garf, and … a probe? Well, as long as they helped out, everything would be fine.

Garf underwent surgery and had his teeth fixed, no longer having them stick out from under his upper lip. He married Khar, and they lived together in the Temple of Young, taking care of the protoss children there. A large holographic photo of the young couple dressed in traditional green wedding garments was placed on a wall in the living room. To the right of that photo, there was a smaller one of Garf with Ray in the background so the raven could appear in full. In that same picture, Garf was grinning and holding a chocolate cake on a plate.

Khar and Garf went to another room to check on the younglings that were too young to walk on their own. Two of the little ones in the technologically-advanced cribs did not look like usual protoss, each of them having pale pink skin and a mouth. It seemed like Garf and Khar had somehow managed to crossbreed with each other. Their children were pretty noisy sometimes – much to Khor'kai's disappointment, but he still loved them and tried to be the best grandfather he could be for them.

Gorgas the stalker married female stalker Vadeen, who had set aside some of her egg cells before merging her soul with her artificial body. They had four children, who were cared for at the Temple of Young for a few hours a day, when the couple could not stay at home.

* * *

The xel'naga tried to learn the fate of his mentor, Ouros, but he could not find any trace of him in the future. It was a sign that the old shepherd of the Cycle had died before that time. But did he get killed, or did he succeed in contacting the champion and transferring his essence to her?

Looking as far as he could into the timeline, the green xel'naga saw … Sarah Kerrigan. She was no longer the demonic Queen of Blades, but rather an angelic, orange, fiery winged humanoid xel'naga. She said, "I choose something different. I choose freedom … for all of us." Then she gathered all of her strength, put her hands forward, and fired from them a bright golden beam at Amon's head. As light engulfed the area, Amon closed his eyes and accepted his fate, finally being at peace.

* * *

The green xel'naga smiled inside, knowing that his actions had pretty much ensured that future. It was time for him to get his own well-deserved rest. He flew toward a familiar planet and crash-landed onto its blue sand.

It was night there, and the blue moon provided the only source of light. There was a mountain in the distance. That was where he wanted to go.

He gathered the last of his strength and changed his shape, shrinking and becoming more humanoid. He was Hat Guy again, but he lacked his trademark sedge hat; Smiley seemed to be taking good care of it anyway. The xel'naga limped toward the mountain, at the base of which there was a lone grave with a wreath for the fallen hanging from the top of its tombstone. That grave belonged to Octavian Dice, born March 24th, 2475, died April 8th, 2500.

"I did it, Tavi!" Hat Guy said, crawling toward the grave while bleeding neon green blood from his chest and right shoulder blade. "I stopped Duran from ever having a chance at killing the next xel'naga! Your universe is saved!"

The grave was silent. Of course it was. What was he expecting it to do, say, "Congratulations!"?

He lay on his stomach, over the cold, blue sand. "I wish … I wish you had been there to see the look on Duran's face, Tavi. Actually … I wish you were here ... so I could spend my last moments with you. I'd give anything ..." Looking at the moon, he sighed. "Oh well, at least I will be joining you soon ... maybe just symbolically ... if there might not be anything in death." He put his head down, on its right side, over the grave. "Well, us xel'naga go to the Void when our physical bodies get destroyed, but … Amon took over the Void, so he'll obliterate me before I'll even realize what's happening once I'll get there."

Grass and small trees appeared out of the sand. The trees grew taller and taller until a circular forest covered a small area that included him and the grave at its center.

"I want to spend my last few moments … as the race that taught me the most, and under which I've found friendship and love." His neon green blood turned red and lost its glow. "I want to die … as … terran." The lights of Hat Guy's green goggles and his nose circle were beginning to fade away. Just before they went completely dark, he used his last breath to say, "Good night, Tavi."

* * *

**THE END**


End file.
